By Boldnews.al
Frightened by the online media, Prime Minister Rama is preparing a “dark” draft law to censor the free speech and close the mouth to his opponents. Without any transparency and confidentially in the Electoral Reform Commission, the draft law aims to ensure that all electronic portals that are not registered and are not recognized by the media monitoring board will not be allowed to campaign electoral.
“It is forbidden to use uncontrolled electronic portals from the Media Monitoring Board for election propaganda. State authorities take measures to close during the electoral campaign of unregistered electronic portals that disseminate electoral propaganda, conduct polls without respecting the rules of this code, or exceed the bounds of information and are considered as electoral propaganda “- Article 10 of the amendments submitted by the co-chair of the reform commission Taulant Balla.
This is an attempt by the premier painter who for his campaign wants to support media that is under his rule. Same as in the previous elections, the campaign will prevail from material sent by political parties, mounted and cured in any deta that government propaganda carries in the brain of citizens.
For this reason, the SP request to close them during the election campaign is entirely based on political goals. It is a pure attempt by Prime Minister Rama and the majority he represents to close the mouth of critical media that he has not managed to control, with construction permits, tenders, concessions and public money distribution.
The efforts of the head of government to eradicate portals that have been criticized have started for several months. He has used controversial Italian Carlo Bollino to close the portal # hashtagalbania.com, an opposition portal that has not just misled the current government. But Bollino managed to censor Lolita’s facebook page, as well as court proceedings against some journalists.
Media freedom was also criticized by the EU Progress Report for Albania, which expressed strong stance against censorship of free speech and influence of officials in the country’s main media. The most flagrant case is that of closing the investigative emission “Públicus” after investigating the death of a minor in the treating company in Sharra. Meanwhile, the director of A1 News, Alida Tota, was dismissed from the job.
In another article SP seeks not to publish the exit poll 5 days before the election. “Electoral poll results can not be published during the last 5 days before the election date, including the date of the election, until the closing time of the polls” – stated in point 4 of subsection 10 proposed by the Socialist Party. The reasons for this request have not been explained.
A few days ago, the OSCE mission in Tirana published a survey called “Public Knowledge and Perceptions of the Communist Past in Albania and their Future Prospects”. The survey showed that 45% of Albanians enjoy positive opinion for former dictator Enver Hoxha while 42 percent, negative.
But this strange OSCE poll is encouraging the ruling “communists” who seek to censor the free speech and unfurl propaganda without any hindrance. On the other hand, the OSCE with this survey conveys a message to citizens that they should be mind-boggling and not responsive.
Absurd is the fact that the OSCE’s diplomatic mission in Tirana conducts surveys for the communists but does not say anything about media censorship and freedom of speech. Prime Minister Edi Rama is always talking about “media kits” scolding all journalists who are kidding to broadcast his word, but the OSCE “looks down” ahead of this.
No response, no report and no signal has been made by the OSBE to the majority that has announced war on online portals. At the same line of silence is the European Union embassy in Tirana.
“Bregu” amendments
Another “serious” threat to media freedom appeared in the Albanian Parliament’s calendar a few weeks ago. It is a change in the civil code known as the “Coastal Amendment”.
The amendment was initially proposed in April 2015, crashed as an illogical and invalid initiative and was forgotten for a year and a half before it reappeared as a ghost of a forgotten initiative, even by the proposer himself, who did not even withdrew the proposal and does not even want to move it forward.
Government’s even more serious threat to the media than Prime Minister Edi Rama’s initiative to criminalize defamation of senior officials and a three-year jail sentence. This was unveiled by the media on midnight on November 11, 2015, as it survived the outrage of the public and international organizations for only 12 hours.
On November 12, Rama himself declared on Facebook that he would withdraw the bill to “improve” it.
And although they have passed a year since the draft law was “withdrawn for improvement,” he remained there, on a shelf in the prime ministry where he was dusty without being able to recycle.
It is unknown how serious this Socialist Party’s recent proposal to close online portals, but the proposal becomes more ridiculous when it comes from the party of a prime minister who stays all day on social media and uses them for uninterrupted propaganda.
