KOPJE, Macedonia — Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov called an emergency meeting of political leaders Friday, hours after demonstrators — mostly supporters of the country’s dominant conservative party — invaded parliament and assaulted opposition lawmakers. Victims included opposition Social Democrat leader Zoran Zaev, the head of a small ethnic Albanian opposition party and 22 police. Macedonia is also increasingly divided along ethnic lines, with demonstrators protesting against opposition plans to give greater powers to the ethnic Albanian minority — a quarter of the country’s population. Conservative VMRO-DPMNE leader Nikola Gruevski also deplored the violence, but said his political opponents provoked it. The violence started when dozens of protesters, many masked, broke through a police cordon after the speaker’s election, shouting, throwing chairs and wielding camera tripods abandoned by startled journalists.

Source: National Post April 28, 2017 13:30 UTC