On Friday, Skopje Mayor Danela Arsovska said she’d been earlier that day physically attacked, threatened, and cursed at while she’d been carrying out official activities in Cair.
Outside a hospital in Skopje, where she’d gone after the attack, she explained that first, there had been verbal attacks. Arsovska also said the incident had taken place in front of police and that she, together with City employees, had been spat at and hit with chairs while they had been conducting insight into an illegal structure reported by the City around 20 times for illegal connection to the water and electricity network.
“He physically attacked me, with beating, swinging, with kicks, in front of the Interior Ministry’s eyes. Threats of the lowest kind, that I would be raped, that my family would be raped, in front of the eyes and ears of Interior Ministry officers. Instead of him being detained right away, they allowed him, for 30 minutes, to be calling people, friends, speaking, telling as loudly as possible what he would be doing to me, to my family, to my child”, Mayor Arsovska stressed.
According to her, the incident is a result of inaction by police following her post seven days prior that she was receiving threats, without specifying whether she’d filed a report.
Cair Municipality said it had nothing to do with the incident, adding that no employee or official of local authorities had been neither involved nor present at the scene.
The Interior Ministry said footage would be used to determine whether everything had taken place in front of officers.
“According to information that I have, it’s true there was physical contact between a male and the Mayor. It’s an absolute lie that that took place in front of officers. That’s what I’ve been notified by officers, that is, by the Skopje Internal Affairs Sector’s assistant chief. This is once again an attempt to manipulate the public. We will determine things in detail. From what I know, there are videos of the event. We will determine the whats, the whys, and the hows”, Minister Pance Toskovski stated.
Numerous political parties and organizations said they were condemning the attack and called on institutions to solve the case as soon as possible.