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Tragjas Water Supply/Online disinformation campaign against protesting residents

Politiko 2025-03-20 08:02:47

On February 20, an Instagram page titled “Ujësjellësi Tragjas/Himarë” began distributing propaganda materials about the controversial water supply project on the Izvor River as well as a disinformation campaign targeting residents of the Tragjas area who are protesting against this project.

The Instagram page has published 33 short videos, has 909 followers so far, and has been duplicated with a second page on the social network "Facebook" to increase the distribution of the posts. Their authors are so far unknown.

"Now that the residents of Tragjas know that they will have water 24 hours a day and the water is abundant... what are they asking for?", one of the posts reads, accompanied by footage of the clash between the residents of Tragjas and the police forces on March 4.

Other posts allude, without providing any data, to the fact that the protesters in Tragjas are being used for private interests, or quote unnamed experts who say that there is water for everyone and it is being wasted by being poured into the sea.

The project that has angered Tragjas residents is titled “Water Supply of the Coastal Areas of the Strategic Investment Zones of Draleos, Drimadhes and Dhërmi Phase III” and will cost Albanian taxpayers 8 million euros. The project is expected to take water from the Izvor River in the village of Tragjas and deliver it to the luxury tourist complexes of Dhërmi.

The project is part of a series of public investments, worth tens of millions of euros, in the service of luxury villa and hotel complexes built on the Himara coast under the guise of strategic investments. Like many similar projects that affect natural resources, the waterworks have encountered opposition from local residents.

They have organized protests and clashed with employees of the company carrying out the works, while accusing that the works were started in violation of the law, without conducting public consultation with them, and that their continuation will bring serious consequences, leaving them without a water supply.

Facebook and Instagram pages and a group of seemingly original but contentless and recently created profiles contradict this narrative. The pages use an image for their logo from pngtree, which sells ready-made logos for a minimum subscription of $399 per year.

The authors behind these pages consider their activity as a "public service", claim to be owned by "Vlora Waterworks" and advertise the project as "The largest project in the Ionian Riviera".

The page also published posts with political content, attacking opposition parties that have opposed the project and at the same time, messages of support for the Minister of Defense, Pirro Vengu, the Socialist Party candidate in Vlora.

BIRN also found that the pages on Instagram and Facebook advertise their propaganda posts. On March 19, they had three active ads, two on Instagram and one funded post in support of Vengu on Instagram and Facebook./BIRN