The Public Room Telegram group is currently closed. The message says “!! A new group has been created. The incident came to light about two years ago after women and various NGOs came forward to complain about the group’s activities.Ī screenshot of messages announcing the opening of the new group after the original “Public Room” was busted. The court considered both men flight risks and ruled sentenced them to house arrest until they are sent to prison. these are comments from some instagram post i have not seen, i got these on facebook: The thing that triggered me, and why i decided to share this with the people that follow me, was the fact that there were still pigs that defended them. They were also charged with allowing group members to share videos containing child pornography, including sexual abuse involving a four-year-old child. The court found both men found guilty of distributing illicit text and audiovisual content between December 19, 2019, and January 28, 2020. As a result, apart from their previous 13 months of house arrest, the court sentenced them to four years in prison.
The group’s founder, Darko Kostovski and the group’s moderator Mihail Panevski were found guilty of misusing nude photographs of women and girls and sharing personal data (first and last names, telephone numbers, and personal addresses) in the “Public Room” group on Telegram. “Javna Soba,” meaning “Public Room” (an allusion to the term “public house,” a synonym for a brothel), was a sexual predator group on Telegram with over 7,000 members, used for sharing private nude photos or videos of girls and women from North Macedonia and abroad, including child pornography.
TELEGRAM PORN TRIAL
The Basic Criminal Court Skopje passed sentences convicting two men in the “Javna Soba” trial to 4-years prison sentences on March 11, 2022. An edited version is republished here under a content-sharing agreement between Global Voices and the Metamorphosis Foundation. This story is based on original coverage by Meta.mk.
“Public Room is a Crime” banner on the Februprotest against impunity for sexual predators in Skopje, North Macedonia.