TORTURE AND OTHER ILL-TREATMENT REFUGEES’ AND MIGRANTS’ RIGHTS In February, the European Court of Human Almost 19,000 refugees and migrants Rights (ECtHR) struck out two complaints of transited through the country. Between suspicious prison deaths in 2017, after the January and September 388 people, government agreed a €12,000 settlement including children, were arbitrarily detained with the parents of a Roma man and with the in immigration detention centres as witnesses sister of another. In both cases, ill-treatment in 24 proceedings brought against was suspected. smugglers. Between January and March In May the European Committee for the alone, an estimated 4,000 refugees and Prevention of Torture, following their 2020 migrants were pushed back into Greece, visit, highlighted the chronic ill-treatment of often after registration, many reporting abuse suspects by police officers and other and ill-treatment. One asylum seeker was violations of detainees’ rights. They also granted subsidiary protection. criticized the authorities’ persistent failure to From September, 407 Afghan citizens address systemic failings in prisons, evacuated from Kabul arrived in North including ill-treatment and inhumane and Macedonia prior to resettlement in the USA degrading conditions. or Canada. They were granted a three-month FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION visa and accommodated in hotels. By December, 76 Afghans had been resettled to In December journalists and media workers Greece, France and Ireland. urged the government to adopt measures DISCRIMINATION announced in July increasing penalties for the increasing number of attacks on In June, the Helsinki Committee reported a journalists and reducing fines for defamation. 49% increase in both incidents and FREEDOM OF ASSEMBLY prosecutions for ethnically motivated hate speech. The Commission for Prevention and During a protest calling for accountability for Protection from Discrimination was not fully the deaths of 14 people in a fire in a functional. Covid-19 unit in Tetovo hospital on 8 ROMA September, five ethnic Albanians were In April a gynaecologist was appointed to the detained for public order offences, two of clinic in Šuto Orizari, a Roma suburb in the them for “participation in a mob”. After 38 capital, Skopje, following a complaint by 58 days’ detention they were sentenced to one Roma women (assisted by the European year’s probation. Roma Rights Centre) who had been denied VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND GIRLS access to reproductive healthcare for over a year. The Law on Prevention and Protection from In June the Skopje Basic Court ruled that Violence against Women and Domestic the Ministry of Health had discriminated Violence was adopted in January. against Roma drug users who were minors, Misogynistic hate speech increased. Police mandating a specialized health unit to failed to investigate complaints by women provide them with appropriate treatment and and girls whose images were, without their rehabilitation. consent, among 7,000 shared by men on the In June, the ECtHR found the authorities social media platform Telegram. Proceedings had failed to investigate a racially motivated for child pornography opened against two assault by several police on a Roma man men in July. In April NGOs recommended a during a raid in Topana, Skopje, in 2013, support package for women following requiring Macedonia to provide €3,000 domestic violence, and called for femicide to compensation. be a specific criminal offence. Amnesty International Report 2021/22 283