Urging competent institutions to act upon the alleged abuses, unlawful conduct, corruption and human rights violations in the released telephone conversations

We, the civil society organizations from the Anti-Corruption Platform are carefully monitoring the publication of the recorded telephone communications.

We believe that the published recordings should be subject to an investigation due to suspicions for the existence of illegal wiretapping, and to determine who recorded the conversations and violated the citizens’ privacy.

We demand a thorough examination of the content of the recordings, as the conversations indicate potential illegal activities. Regardless of the source of the recorded conversations, the content indicates existence of corruption and mass abuse of power, as punishable acts which are prosecuted ex officio. We remind that corruption is, inter alia, the situation in which institutions are “privatized” for the interests of the ruling political parties and individuals and we want to indicate that this leads to an unbalanced and illegitimate political power used for personal interests, as opposed to the general interest and the interest of the citizens. This situation, in addition to the situation with the state-controlled media, is called an imprisoned state, in which the rule of law is prevented.

The platform of civil society organizations fighting against corruption urges:

1. The Public Prosecution to immediately initiate proceedings for prosecution against persons unknown for illegal eavesdropping and to initiate proceedings for all the alleged abuses, unlawful conduct, corruption and violation of human rights in the published recordings, and to examine the indications from the recordings that:

– MOI prevented political action during the elections;
– There was a violation of the right to vote, through illegal issuance of personal IDs;
– Resources of the Ministry of Interior were used as party headquarters;
– There was manipulation with the exercising of the right to use welfare and benefits;
– The Public Revenue Office selectively conducted inspections and levied fines;
– There were threats for termination of employment for public administration employees.

2. Public Prosecutor to initiate proceedings for determining whether the resources of the Ministry of Interior were used for illegal wiretapping and to inform the public about the results of the investigation.

3. The State Commission for Preventing Corruption should also intervene and undertake all the measures within its power.

4. Judicial Council to initiate proceedings for unethical and illegal conduct of judges for whom there are indications that they acted under the influence of government officials.

We believe that the role of the institutions of the system is essential for reassuring the citizens that they live in a country that is able to protect their interests, rights and freedoms.

If these institutions do not inform the public that they are taking measures to investigate the allegations in the next 30 days, we believe that they are not acting in their official capacity.

Skopje, March 25, 2015

The complete text of the call can be downloaded here.

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