Hundreds of Albanian protesters marched through the center of Skopje today, demanding that the bar exam is taken in Albanian.
The relatively minor issue was picked up by the DUI party, which is trying to raise nationalist tensions as it struggles to get accustomed to life in the opposition. Protesters carried Albanian and a few US flags, and chanted “we speak Albanian”. At one point, some of the protesters confronted one of the DUI officials – Arbr Ademi – but there was no larger escalation.

The Justice Ministry issued a statement saying that it supports the right to protest but believes that the protesters are being manipulated by a party that was in power for two decades and could have easily resolved the issue.

It is particularly concerning that a certain opposition party is raising suspicions of public manipulation and abuse of sensitive issues, and obviously is using ethnic rhetoric to achieve short term political goals. In that context, it was evident that the state symbols were absent from the protest, which further questions the democratic capacity of the organizers and their attitude toward the state and the constitutional order, the Justice Ministry said in its statement.