Will the Police also stop those who criticize Rama online?

Genc Burimi

Before the ink on the state's signature, which has poured tens of thousands of euros into the surrealist delegation of 30 people who accompanied Rama to Ankara, has dried, he returns home inspired to put into practice Erdogan's lessons on how to stifle popular protests.

In the most unexpected way, the Prime Minister today brought the highest-ranking leader of the State Police before the media and the public opinion, ostensibly to inform about a special police operation of the utmost importance for national interests. The public was informed that over 10 thousand accounts on social networks have been investigated, after anonymous and not-so-anonymous persons have dared to criticize companies that benefit from tourism income, but which are often rumored to be businesses favored by the government, i.e. with owners who are friends of Edi Rama.

If the government follows this path, it opens a Pandora's Box for the most serious abuses against freedom of expression and the right to opinion. What will the Police's next step be? To research on the Internet who criticizes the government and Edi Rama and then arrest them? Exactly like Erdogan did after the 2016 "coup"?

 

If the criminal offense of "agitation and propaganda" against this or that business is restored, or rather revived, in the Albanian Criminal Code, the same logic could be applied tomorrow to those who criticize Edi Rama.

The threat made by the Police Director was unequivocal:

"I want to make it clear that any person found to be involved in this illegal activity, regardless of their location, will face the full force of the law."

So, not only Albanians in Albania are threatened, but also those in the diaspora.

When protesters are insulted, it is not a crime.
Meanwhile, the investigative journalism network BIRN published an interesting investigation, but in the opposite direction, denouncing cases where anonymous authors attack protesters. The article is titled: “Opinions from 'anonymous' authors target Flamingo protests”.

According to BIRN, fictional journalist names, which do not exist, are publishing articles against the protesters in several media outlets, such as Tema, Shqiptarja.com and JavaNews.

When BIRN contacted the Shqiptarja.com editorial team to ask if they knew the anonymous authors and if they had any contact with them, the editorial team's response was this:

"An opinion can also be published anonymously, without compromising the essence of the message it conveys."

And, in fact, this answer raises an interesting point: the message matters more than the author's name.

A response that, according to the author, should be urgently transmitted to the Director of Police, Ilir Proda (or the relevant leader, as the case may be), whose forces have thousands of other problems to solve than dealing with anonymous accounts that publish criticism of tourist businesses.

If the content of these messages is what matters — whether it's about the rooms being too expensive, dirty, or other criticisms that every citizen in a democratic society has the right to express without being threatened by the Police — then why do the Police waste time with them?

Or is the real message this: "If you criticize a hotel, look what we do to you. Try criticizing me."

But even Rama can be told: with only two days of "internship" in Ankara, your mind has reached this point. If you had stayed a week, you would most likely have threatened the flamingos themselves with prison.