World Bulletin / News Desk

Police in Macedonia clashed with ethnic Albanian protesters over the weekend while they were demonstrating against the life sentences handed down to six community members for 'murder and terrorism.'

Reports state that several thousand protesters pelted police with rocks in the capital Skopje on Friday, which was responded to with police firing teargas, stun grenades, and water cannon. Many on both sides were reportedly wounded.

On April 12, 2012, Kire Trichkovski, Filip Slavkovski, Tsvetanco Atskovski, Aleksandar Nakevski and Borche Stefanovski were murdered after they were fired upon with automatic rifles during the Orthodox Easter.

Protesters called the jailing of the ethnic Albanians, who were charged with trying to provoke ethnic tensions, politically motivated.

Protests first started after Interior Minister Gordana Yankulovska said the charged men were 'terrorists', raising doubts over the fairness of their trial.

Ethnic Albanians, most of them Muslims, who make up around 500,000 of Macedonia's two million population, complain they are often discriminated against.