FLASH
Shkruar nga Flamur Vezaj
The fourth power does not need permission from SPAK. At the end of the day, this process in the Constitutional Court is not simply a procedural matter. It is the test that will show whether Albanian justice is mature enough to understand its limits...
Journalists, since the earliest days of the profession, have sought confirmation from prosecutors for news – not permission to publish it. Because permission to publish has never been a professional standard of journalism, but a habit of servile people. Real journalists do not seek “approval”, but pursue the truth – even when it does not suit the next generation of rulers.
But when SPAK decides to act like a judge, prosecutor, police officer, and… responsible news editor, then we have a serious problem. And this is no longer a problem for one journalist, but for the entire system.
Altin Dumani, Doloresa Musabelliu and Behar Dibra kept themselves under investigation for 8 months, under the pretext of "revealing investigative secrets", while they were in a clear conflict of interest - where every novice lawyer knows that in such cases, the investigative file should be passed on to another prosecutor's office. But no. Not only did they not pass it on to another prosecutor's office, but after 8 months they handed it over to their "colleagues", again within SPAK. "Respecting the violation" of the law in style.
And what happened? Even after 16 months of investigation, still no action against himself, against the judicial police officers, or against the prosecutors who had the file in their hands. No attempt to uncover the "information" of journalist Elton Qyno! And the funniest thing? No one knows who extracted the information from SPAK that Qyno published! Or maybe everyone knows, but no one is saying.
Meanwhile, SPAK itself claims that it was “looking for the source” of the information leak in the journalist’s work tools. But instead of finding the source, the materials “discovered” on journalist Qyno’s phones were put into another investigative file! Not to investigate the leak, but to punish the journalist. An unprecedented case!
So what did Qyno do to deserve all this punishment? He published conversations secured through SKY ECC, yes, by SPAK itself – conversations that exposed the lies of Nuredin Dumani, the so-called “golden penitent”. What he had stated to prosecutors did not match what he had said himself in SKY communications. In any normal country, this would spark an investigation for false witness. In Albania? No, here the journalist who exposed it is punished. So, Qyno published the truth – and this was unacceptable to the prosecutors.
And how did they get revenge? They put Qyno in SPAK for 8 hours, with a body search, home, car, office, phone, work computer... they even searched the children's toys. They confiscated everything in the name of "suspicion", but the goal was clear: to shut him up.
Meanwhile, the journalists' associations - which are in a surplus of papers for projects - chose to remain silent loudly. The only exception was Aleksandër Çipa, who appeared before the Constitutional Court. While the rest of the associations and journalists, filled with honorary diplomas and sterile activities, hid behind the armchair of political correctness or the "professional secret" of individual and institutional silence.
Let's make a small comparison. Here in the US, when group chats were discovered discussing military strikes, plans, and types of weapons – and a reporter was among the participants – no one dared to investigate the journalist. His phone was not seized, he was not held in solitary confinement, he was not publicly demonized. Because here they understand that a journalist is not an enemy of the state, but a key link in the functioning of democracy.
The fourth power does not need permission from SPAK. At the end of the day, this process in the Constitutional Court is not simply a procedural matter. It is the test that will show whether Albanian justice is mature enough to understand its limits. SPAK is not the third power. Nor a power in itself. And it is certainly not the editorial board that decides what is published and what is not.
The media is the fourth estate. And free speech is not a luxury that a prosecutor grants when the time is right. It is a constitutional right, which does not depend on anyone's wishes - neither on SPAK, nor on Altin Dumani and his "experts"!
Lini një Përgjigje