FLASH
Shkruar nga Ardit Rada
What happened on Friday afternoon is simply proof that this spirit has not changed. We only need to look at the people who are currently holding a mandate as MPs and who feel authorized to verbally abuse journalists in the middle of Tirana.
The opposition protest of Sali Berisha and Tedi Blushi, on the day of the Summit, besides being a desperate political act, highlighted a long-standing feature of the DP: the hostile and violent attitude towards journalists. The physical and verbal attacks by some DP deputies against journalists and field operators were not simply isolated outbursts. They are a reflection of a political philosophy that does not accept critical questioning, does not tolerate free speech and does not see the media as collaborators of democracy, but as opponents to pull the wool over its eyes.
This is not a new phenomenon. Since 1992, when the DP seized power, its relationship with the independent media has been tense, often repressive. The cases are numerous and documented: from denigrating rhetoric against journalists, to serious events such as the burning of the editorial office of the newspaper “Koha Jonë” in 1997, the clearest symbol of political violence against free speech. At the same time, public television became a mouthpiece of the government, while journalists who dared to ask uncomfortable questions were persecuted, attacked or marginalized. And a single year that this television spoke against Sali Berisha and in favor of the KLA war, they “paid the price” in September 1998 by occupying it with machine guns and tanks. Without delving deeper into the bullets against the media on January 21 and the uprooting of antennas in Tarabosh…
What happened on Friday afternoon is simply proof that this spirit has not changed. We only need to look at who the people who today hold a mandate as MPs are and who feel authorized to verbally abuse journalists in the middle of Tirana. They are not individuals elected by citizens in an open and representative process. They are names entered by Sali Berisha on closed lists, selected not for their quality of representation, but for loyalty to a spirit that sees violence as a tool and the media as a threat.
These people are not coincidences. They are precisely those who resemble Berisha in behavior and attitude. They are the ones he needs to maintain a tough line, where the rhetoric of fear and contempt for free speech is never absent. What happened to the journalists on May 16 is not an incident, but a continuation. And for this there is neither repentance, nor distancing, nor reflection. And there never will be, because at a minimum all people with mandates involved in the aggression against the media must resign or be expelled from the DP.
The Democratic Party does not see the media as an ally in the function of public information. It sees it as an obstacle in the path of a policy that seeks to survive through victimization and through the silencing of different voices. And when it fails to silence them, it tries to intimidate them.
But maybe I'm wrong too! Maybe journalists should have gone to the protest wearing bulletproof vests and gotten prior permission for any questions that might hurt the MPs' feelings. Because in the closed party of open lists, free speech is a crime and microphones are weapons of mass destruction.
But unfortunately for Berisha and his clones, journalism does not work with permission. And as long as the public has the right to know, there will always be someone who will ask them questions, even if the answer comes with insults and threats from behind. Free speech does not fit in a box, much less in the primary boxes that are opened only with a signature. The one that signs every public nonsense with "sb".
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