Six women journalists targeted by gender-based online harassment

AJM •︎ Posted on

Six women journalists targeted by gender-based online harassment

Translations: Skopje 

  • Case info

  • Personal info

  • Regional center
    Skopje
  • Who was attacked?
    Journalist
  • Gender
    Man
  • Victim(s) name
    Group of journalists: Sashka Cvetkovska, Denica Chadikjovska, Maja Jovanovska, Dragan Nikolovski, Miroslava Simonovska, Jovana Kostadinovska, Marina Ilievska Dokovska.

  • Media outlet

  • Name of the media outlet
    IRL, MRT, Sloboden Pechat
  • Type of media platform
    Television
    Printed Media
    Online Media

  • Incident Data

  • Date of incident
    01.10.2025
  • City
    Skopje
  • Were authorities informed?
    Case was reported to the police
    Case was reported to the Prosecutor’s Office
  • Perpetrator(s)
    Known (suspected)
  • Attacked by
    (ordinary) citizens
  • Means of incidents and attacks
    Posts or comments on social networks
  • Type of incident
    Other threats to journalists
  • Type of threat
    Aggressive, harassing or discriminatory statements

  • Action by the authorities

  • Action taken by the journalists' association

  • Was journalist's association informed by the journalists directly?
    Yes
  • What was the reaction of the journalists' association?
    The association reacted publicly
    The association sent a letter of concern to the institutions

On 2 October 2025, the Association of Journalists of Macedonia (AJM) excluded Zoran Bozhinovski from membership following a decision by its Honor Council, which found serious and repeated violations of several provisions of the national Code of Journalistic Ethics. AJM concluded that a series of his recent Facebook posts had incited gender-based harassment against women journalists, undermining their reputation and privacy, and generating malicious comments that encourage hate speech and threats. The decision followed five complaints submitted by the affected journalists, and AJM stressed that such behaviour contributes to a hostile environment and increases the risk to the safety of women journalists.

On 7 October 2025, the media regulator, the Agency for Audio and Audiovisual Media Services (AVMU), also publicly condemned the language used by journalist and editor of the portal burevesnik.info, Zoran Bozhinovski, in a series of Facebook posts targeting journalists. AVMU assessed that his posts contained extremely vulgar expressions and defamatory claims without any factual basis, which violate ethical standards and create a hostile environment that may lead to pressure, intimidation, and, in the most severe cases, physical violence against media workers.

These posts remain publicly available on Facebook and continue to generate hostile comments directed at the affected women journalists.