site.btaBitola Court Hears Two Witnesses in Trial of Bulgarian Culture Club Founder

A court case against the chairman of the defunct Bulgarian Cultural Centre in Bitola, Lyupcho Georgievski, continued here on Monday with the questioning of two witnesses, one for the defendant and one for the prosecution.

Georgievski is on trial for inciting racial hatred and xenophobia and spreading hate speech through the Facebook profile of the Ivan Mihaylov Cultural Club.

The prosecution's witness Goran Sadikario, Director of the Holocaust Museum in Skopje, said that the Jewish community in North Macedonia was outraged by the opening of a culture club named after Ivan Mihaylov, “a Fascist and proven Nazi collaborator”, and that he himself was “hurt by the presence of Bulgarian officials during the club’s opening”, especially considering that it was on a Sabbath, which is the Jewish day of rest and was also the first day of Passover. Furthermore, Sidikario said that the club used a house which is only 50 m from a house that was used by young Jews in Bitola before WWII.

According to Georgievski's lawyer Nasser Raufi, it is preposterous to claim that opening the club aimed to inflame the Jewish community because very few people in Bitola are aware that this part of town used to be a Jewish neighbourhood.  He said that it also transpired from the witness statement that local people are widely unaware about the said Jewish holiday, the lawyer said.

Blagoj Shatorov, the secretary of the defunct club who appeared as a witness for the defence, said that its purpose was to organize culture events and that during the COVID pandemic it was used as a base for various humanitarian activities.

He said he was unaware that a house on the same street had been used by Jews before WWII, or that the said Jewish holidays fell on the day of the club’s opening.

He said that Georgievski was unable to hate anybody, and that people of various ethnicity and races used to visit the culture centre.

Georgievski’s lawyer asked that the court summon as a witness the former Prime Minister of the Republic of North Macedonia, Ljupcho Georgievski, whose party had said that the case against the culture club chairman can be considered politically-motivated.

The next hearing of the court is on March 13, 2024.