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Albanian Parliament Passes ‘Anti-defamation Law’ Regardless of Journalists’ Protests

Politiko 19 Dhjetor 2019, 12:54
Albanian Parliament Passes ‘Anti-defamation Law’ Regardless of

The Assembly approved on Thursday the so-called anti-defamation legal package, while journalists and associations had gathered in front of the Parliament Hall in protest against the said pieces of legislation. The amendments to the Media Law were approved with 83 votes in favor, 13 against and five abstentions, whereas those to the Law on Electronic Communications with 87 votes in favor, 10 against and three abstentions.

In an address in support of the media legislation, Prime Minister Edi Rama said that its approval had turned into a necessity in order to guarantee the Albanian citizens’ right to lawfully react to the public undermining of their own dignity or to blackmailing due to public office or entrepreneurship, without infringing upon the freedom of expression and the pluralism of information sources.

“We are not trying to hamper freedom of expression, rather our key concern is to stop defamation,” Rama said. He said that the legal package had been consulted for a year with the OSCE. Rama said that defamation was a criminal offense in 42 of the OSCE participating States and that the proposed laws were lemonade when compared to the similar laws in force in many European Union member states. He said that the laws would be approved and enter into force in January 2020.

The protesting journalists, on the other hand, said that the government would never succeed at restraining their freedom of expression and imposing state censorship on online media. According to them, the laws approved yesterday would be repealed as unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court once it becomes functional and/or by the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights. 

There was an immediate reaction yesterday by the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) on Twitter condemning the media law changes adopted by the Albanian Parliament: “Cosmetic changes made at the very last minute do not address all the concerns raised by the European Union and the Council of Europe and the CoE Commissioner on Human Rights. We urge the President not to decree these changes as they will only harm media freedom in Albania. We will continue to support local journalists and activists.”  

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