Pan-Macedonian orgs send death threats to Greek MPs over FYROM’s name

Pan-Macedonian organizations from Greece and abroad are threatening Greek lawmakers with death “if they accept the term Macedonia in the new name of Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). On Monday, Parliament Speaker Nikos Voutsis revealed that lawmakers have been receiving death threats.

According to efsyn, Pan-Macedonian Associations from Giannitsa in Northern Greece, from Canada, South Africa and Australia sent an extra-judicial document to four MPs and warned them that they would be subject to life imprisonment or death sentence, if the term Macedonia is included in the new name of FYROM.

In the 25-page long document, the associations warn the MPs that they “commit the offense of high treason and direct synergy to a threat to the territorial integrity of the country, which are punished with life imprisonment and death sentence respectively.”

They write further that the “concession of the name of Macedonia is unconstitutional and undemocratic”.

They urge the MPs to “satisfy the associations’ demands and resign from their posts after they make a declaration of independence so that their seats cannot be replaced by other MPs.”

The four Pan-Macedonia Associations are being legally represented by Katerina Gatzouli, coordinator of the World Pan-Macedonian Union based in USA, one of the initiators of the Macedonia protest in Athens on 4. February 2018.

Pictures of the extrajudicial document via newsit.gr

Parliament Speaker Nikos Voutsis revealed the document at a plenary meeting on Monday.

“There are documents by Pan-Macedonian Organizations arraigning us of treason and death sentence if  somebody dares voting in favor of the Foreign Ministry proposal for a complex name” of FYROM.

“Some are lose control,” Voutsis said adding “we are not neutral, neither bureaucrats to pretend we don’t know what is going on. These are divisive scoldings.”

According to state broadcaster ERT, the texts were sent to all 300 lawmakers via e-mail.

“They are directly against the democratic order of the country. We cannot terrorize us, we are a democratically elected government, a democratically elected parliament,” head of SYRIZA parliamentary group Kostas Zachariadis told the state radio.

It remains to be seen whether the Greek state will take some legal measures against such threats.

A week ago, Foreign Minister, Nikos Kotzias, received a letter with death threats and a bullet over the same subject. So far, police authorities have not announced any investigation results.

In a statement uploaded on its social media account, the Pan-Hellenic Federation of  Cultural Associations of Macedonia supported the threats saying that “the extrajudicial documents sent by the Pan-Macedonian Unions Abroad and the Pan-Hellenic Federation of Macedonians to the representatives of the Greek Parliament express the positions of the Greek people as they were expressed with the big rallies in 1992 and 2018.”

PS I don’t know whether the Pan-Macedonian organizations in Greece and abroad took notice that the death penalty was abolished in Greece for all crimes and circumstances in 2005. However, if diaspora Macedonians keep on living in the civil war era of 1949, they will never be granted the right to vote in Greece as their ultimate goal is. Period.