Macedonia’s Colourful Revolution

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 23 June 2016

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Lucy Ash meets Macedonia’s Special Prosecutors -three women who have become the scourge of the political elite and heroines of the street protests now rocking the tiny Balkan nation. Their job is to investigate claims of wrongdoing and corruption revealed in a huge wiretapping scandal. The former Prime Minister has called them puppets of the opposition but to protestors on the street the fearless trio are Macedonia’s Charlie’s Angels.

But will they succeed in their crime fighting mission when they have a tight deadline and most state institutions are either refusing to cooperate with them or dragging their feet. Many argue that a Special Prosecution is not much use without a Special Court. Under the current patronage based system, high court judges are appointed only after the approval of senior politicians and the secret police.

Produced by John Murphy

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is a BBC podcast.
0:02.3	You can get all our podcasts and our terms of use
0:04.9	at BBCWorldservice.com slash podcasts. You might find it a little bit hard to hear me at the moment because I'm surrounded by hundreds of people walking down one of the main streets in Skopje, the capital of Macedonia.
0:24.0	They gathered as they do every evening outside the Special Prosecutor's Office.
0:28.3	They're armed with whistles, plastic trumpets.
0:31.2	Some of them have got like colored paint on their faces others are wearing badges
0:35.6	of the former Prime Minister with a big red line through it. This is the
0:39.8	colourful revolution. I'm Lucy Ash and this is assignment on the BBC World Service.
0:45.6	Biliana you're one of the people who was there at the beginning what
0:51.8	are you protesting about?
0:53.0	Against this autocratic regime mainly on the first place and everything that involves
0:59.0	in it. The corruption level is in the society so deeply on every level how the elections are
1:06.2	fraud how the whole judiciary system is corrupted that's why I'm on the street
1:16.0	the Republic of Macedonia is in turmoil. Elections have been cancelled twice this year,
1:19.0	with the main opposition refusing to take part
1:22.0	because it says the whole system is rotten and a fair vote is
1:25.6	impossible. The government claims the opposition is simply afraid of losing and
1:30.0	is trying to snatch power through civil unrest.
1:33.0	This is a story of illegal wiretapping on a huge scale of police brutality and even murder.
1:47.3	And at the centre of it all are three fearless women investigating the suspected perpetrators. They are the special prosecutors.
1:56.2	To many their heroines and to some Macedonia's Charlie's angels. You can find the trio on posters, walls and protesters
2:06.2	t-shirts. It's strange we are not rock stars we are professionals and it's
	...

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