• Protesters attack Macedonian lawmakers after leadership vote
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[url]https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/macedonian-opposition-head-calls-for-end-to-deadlock/2017/04/27/f57127d6-2b5e-11e7-9081-f5405f56d3e4_story.html?utm_term=.714e26244b7b[/url] [QUOTE]Macedonian police fired stun grenades on Thursday evening to disperse protesters outside the parliament and clear the way for the evacuation of lawmakers still in the building. Protesters stormed into Macedonia's parliament and assaulted the leader of the Social Democrats on Thursday after his party and ethnic Albanian allies voted to elect an Albanian as parliament speaker, witnesses said. Live television footage showed Social Democratic leader Zoran Zaev with blood trickling from one side of his forehead, not long after he announced that the majority coalition led by his party had elected Talat Xhaferi as parliament speaker. A Reuters witness saw nationalist protesters angered over Xhaferi's election beating up another lawmaker in parliament. Broken glass littered the floor and traces of blood were seen in hallways. Some of the roughly 200 protesters inside the parliament were masked. Witnesses said that police entered parliament after the disturbances erupted but did not immediately seek to quell the protesters. EU's foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini called for "calm and restraint" "The acts of violence in the Parliament are wholly unacceptable," Mogherini said in a statement. Police said eight people including an ethnic Albanian lawmaker were injured in Thursday's violence. President Gjorge Ivanov invited leaders of all political parties for a meeting in his office on Friday. Ivanov refused to give mandate to Zaev who has forged the coalition with ethnic Albanian parties to form the government saying it threatened the sovereignty of Macedonia. Macedonia has been without a functioning government since 2015 when the country sank into political turmoil over a wiretapping scandal that brought down the ruling nationalist VMRO-DPMNE party bloc.[/QUOTE] [url]http://www.reuters.com/article/us-macedonia-politics-idUSKBN17T2RZ[/url] Changed the article just to be safe, there were some copyright disclaimers. Original article is in the top link, feel free to read both. It's pretty awful to see protesters actually get inside and hurt legislators. Imagine ever seeing this in the US or west european country.
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