Albania’s parliament on Monday announced vacancies for four positions on the board of the country’s Audio-visual Media Authority, AMA, without waiting for the new parliament elected in the April 25 elections to give its view, prompting concerns about the creation of a one-sided board supportive of Edi Rama’s ruling Socialists.
The decision follows the election of four members of the board of Albania’s public broadcaster, two of whom have a clear political affiliation.
Both boards should by law be politically independent, but their members in practice are widely seen as representatives of the parties who propose them in parliament.
Moreover, the current parliamentary opposition bench comprises a number of MPs who have meanwhile gone over to the government side, causing concern that the new boards will be totally dominated by Socialist Party supporters.
Koloreto Cukalli, head of the Albania Media Council, an NGO based in Tirana, said it looked like a power grab by the Socialists that could damage the credibility of the AMA for years.
“Such institutions should be independent and not, as they have been till now, cross-party boards,” Cukalli said, citing an opinion of the Venice Commission. “If the current parliament elects all of them [the board members], the AMA’s reputation will suffer even more,” he added.
Elvin Luku, head of Medialook, a think tank based in Tirana, added that the current parliament lacked the credibility to elect the new board members, and should leave the task to September, when the new parliament meets.
“The election of the board members of the public broadcaster by the current parliament poses concerns in terms of political independence,” Luku told BIRN.
“We already have a problem with editorial independence and the editorial freedom of the media, so it is of crucial importance that the next parliament elects the AMA board members, not this one”, he said.
The Media Commission of parliament debated the candidates for membership of the public broadcaster board on 26 February.
The law grants the opposition in parliament the right to veto some of the candidates, a right deigned to stop the majority party from imposing its choice. Klajdi Qama, an opposition MP, exerted this right, according to the Commission report on the meeting.
Less then two months later, however, Qama became a Socialist Party candidate in the elections. Despite that, he is still nominally representative of the opposition in the current parliament – one of several MPs from the former opposition that has gone over to the ruling Socialist side.
Other MPs, also nominally representing the opposition, have consistently voted in favour of the government, granting the Socialists a de facto supermajority that will end only when the current parliament is dissolved.
Because of this, the boards of various independent institutions are now seen as tools of the ruling Socialists and not, as before, as representing both the government and opposition.
The last elections, which the Socialists again won, took place on April 25 but the previous parliament is still sitting and won’t likely be dissolved until July 7. The new parliament is expected to meet on 9 September.
“Personally, I would prefer to have AMA board vacancies filled by the next parliament,” media expert Luku told BIRN, pointing out that the vacancies were created in 2018 and 2019, so waiting a few more months will not make much difference.
Albania’s Special Structure Against Corruption and Organized Crime has summoned Andi Bushati and Armand Shkullaku, owners and editors of Lapsi.al news website, for questioning about a database, purportedly created by the Socialist Party, which contains the names of 910,000 voters in the Tirana region, along with personal data, including employment and family background records in what critics call a massive tracking system.
Bushati said prosecutors asked him where the information came from, and said he had refused to reveal his source, calling the meeting “a short meeting without much substance” while suggesting that the prosecutors should instead investigate how the personal data of the citizens ended up in the hands of a political party.
The prosecutors have not inspected any party office or commented publicly on what they are investigating.
The news about the database revealed last Sunday sent waves across the political spectrum and the population.
Ruling Socialist Party officials acknowledge that the database exists, but insist the data was provided voluntarily by citizens. They have also claimed that the published excerpts are not theirs.
Socialist parliamentary Group Taulant Balla immediately called the news “Lies!”
“The Socialist Party has built its database over years in door-to-door communication with the people,” he added. Days later, he claimed that the database published was not the one belonging to the Socialist Party.
Edi Rama, the Prime Minister, has acknowledged that his party has a “system of patronage” of voters but said their database is more complex and that the one leaked is probably an old one. Other Socialists have denied that the leaked database is theirs at all.
The opposition Democratic Party claims the data included in the database was stolen by the Socialist Party via the government service website E-Albania, where people apply for different services.
Many citizens who have had access to the database claim the data there are those they supplied to state institutions, and say the database seems well updated.
This E-Albania website was used by the government of Prime Minister Rama to issue permission to go outside during the national lockdown in spring 2020. In their forms, citizens had to provide phone numbers and email addresses.
The database, which BIRN had seen, contains some 910,000 entries of names, addresses, birthday, personal ID cards, employment and other data.
For each voter, a party official known as “patronazhist” a word derived from French patronage, is assigned. If they want to know where somebody works, a search in the database can provide that information.
For each voter, there is data on how they voted in the past and what their likely preference is today. In a separate column titled “comments”, party officials write notes on voters.
In one, a party official notes that “the voter requested employment of his wife” while in another, “the voter didn’t thank [the party] for obtaining his house deeds].
Property issues are widespread in Albania and various governments have been criticized for handing over ownership titles as electoral campaign bribes. The issue of such deeds in elections is currently forbidden.
In several cases, officials noted that some voters do not participate in elections because they are “Jehovah Witnesses,” or “extremist Muslims who are not permitted by religion to vote”.
In one case, the comment indicates that voters’ social media pages are checked by officials: “By investigating his Facebook profile, we can conclude he votes for SP,” a note reads while in another case it reads: “This one has previously voted for PDIU party; should be kept under monitoring.”
A note for a voter identified as business owner reads: “We should contact him for his employees”. In another case: The mother of the voter is employed in the municipality”.
Even family conflicts do not escape the observing eye of the party: “Xxx is relative of xxx but they are not on speaking terms,” a note reads.
The Albanian Helsinki Committee, a rights group based in Tirana, underlined that systematic monitoring of voters by a political party may violate the secrecy of the ballot and is especially concerning if done without a voter’s consent.
On Friday, 12 rights organisations called on the authorities to investigate the matter after indicating that at least the law on the Protection of Personal Data had been violated.
“This case is the illegal collection, elaboration and distribution of personal data of some 1 million citizens without their consent,” the statement reads.
While scores of citizens are interested to know which Socialist Party official is tracking them, Big Brother Albanian style apparently does not lack a note of comedy.
In the database, Socialist Party head and PM Rama, is shown as a voter who works at the Councils of Ministers and is under the “patronage” of Elvis Husha, a party official. Husha is under patronage of another party official.
Journalist Andi Bushati, who first exposed the database, said chances are slim that the prosecutors will do their work. “I don’t really believe that the prosecutors will find the truth of this. When a crime appears, it remains without author,” he commented.
Facebook has for the first time published a report on what Albanian parties have spent on online advertising on the social media giant during the current parliamentary election campaign.
According to the report, the biggest parties predictably spent more money in sponsored posts for political content than the others.
The biggest advertiser was the ruling Socialist Party, which so far posted 394 ads costing 21,907 US dollars, followed by the main opposition centre-right Democratic Party, which spent 11,536 dollars on 81 ads.
According to BIRN’s calculations, 123,152 dollars was spent on political and social advertising by the parties in all. However, its data show that only 113,252 dollars were actually spent by parties, candidates or sites that distribute political ads. The rest of the ads were from the media and from companies that have been wrongly categorized by Facebook’s algorithm.
Gent Progni a web developer, told BIRN that the total amount spent by each party on FB seems quite low for a target audience of two million people, but the figures change if every candidate or other Facebook page campaigning for a political party is counted.
“The amounts are small for an audience of two million Albanians, looked at from the official websites of the parties. But if you see each candidate in particular, or sites that have just opened and are campaigning for parties, we have a completely different reflection of the amount, which increases several times,” he told BIRN.
According to BIRN, many newly opened Facebook pages are spreading political advertising but their expenses, which are high, are not connected always to parties or political candidates.
Facebook asked Albania to be transparent with political advertising in March during the election campaign by including “paid for by…” in sponsored posts.
Political expert Afrim Krasniqi, head of the Albanian Institute of Political Studies, a think tank based in Tirana, told BIRN that this is the first time an Albanian election campaign is being held more virtually than physically.
“This is why parties and candidates are using social media as the cheapest and fastest source of communication,” he told BIRN.
He added that Albania lacks a strong regulatory legal basis or control mechanism concerning the finances of election campaigns or party propaganda on social media.
A law, “On Political Parties”, only obliges parties to be transparent about their financial resources, while the Central Election Commission is responsible for monitoring and auditing the finances of political parties.
The head of the Albanian Media Council has criticised the behaviour of the Mayor of Tirana’s security detail after a video published by Ora News media outlet showed a journalist being physically stopped from putting questions to Mayor Erion Veliaj.
“Veliaj was holding a political event and after he finished he entered a cafe and we were waiting for him outside,” the journalist, Isa Myzyraj, told BIRN.
“As soon as he came out, I approached and asked a question that many are seeking answers to: what can you say about construction without criteria in Tirana? He meanwhile immediately started making accusations about the media executives where I work,” the journalist added.
“With an action that in my opinion … seriously violates freedom of the media, his companions not only obstructed me but held me by the hands and exerted physical pressure so I could not move until Veliaj got in his car and left,” he continued.
Koloreto Çukali, Head of the Albanian Media Council, called the action concerning.
“In the published videos, it is clear that the movement [of the journalist] was forcibly blocked by the individuals accompanying the mayor. The only ‘crime’ of the journalist was putting a microphone in front of Veliaj, a very normal practice in Western countries,” he told BIRN
He added that this is not good practice, especially when the questions were of clear public interest.
According to the 2020 report of media rights watchdog Freedom House, reporters in Albania have little job security and “remain subject to lawsuits, intimidation, and occasional physical attacks by those facing media scrutiny”.
Ora News is a local media outlet owned by Ylli Ndroqi. Its assets were seized by the prosecution on August 2020 under anti-mafia laws. The owner’s lawyer said the client suspected political motives behind the move.
Thousands of children in Albania are at greater risk of harm as their lives move increasingly online during the COVID-19 pandemic, UNICEF and local experts warn.
The closure of the country in March last year due to the spread of the novel coronavirus, including a shift to online schooling, has led to an increase in the use of the Internet by children, some of them under the age of 13.
According to a 2020 UNICEF Albania study titled “A Click Away”, about 14 per cent of children interviewed reporting experiencing uncomfortable online situations, while one in four said they had been in contact at least once with someone they had never met face-to-face before.
The same study said that two in 10 children reported meeting in person someone they had previously only had contact with online, and one in 10 children reported having had at least one unwanted sexual experience via the internet.
A considerable number of those who had caused these experiences were persons known to the children.
UNICEF Albania told BIRN that, after the closure of schools and the introduction of social distancing measures, more than 500,000 children found themselves faced with a new online routine. Online platforms suddenly became the new norm.
“If before the pandemic 13-year-olds or older had the opportunity to gradually become acquainted with social media, communication applications or online platforms, the pandemic suddenly exposed even the youngest children to information technology,” the office told BIRN.
Growth in child pornography sites
According to another report, by the National Centre for Safe Internet and the Centre for the Rights of the Child in Albania, there has been an alarming rise in reports of child pornography sites on the Internet.
This report, titled ‘Internet Rapists: The Internet Industry in the Face of Child and Adolescent Protection in Albania’, is based on data obtained from the National Secure Internet Platform, National Helpline for ALO Children 116-111 and the National Centre for Secure Internet in Albania.
“The number of reported sites of child pornography has reached a record 6,273 pages, or 600 times more than a year ago,” the report states.
It said that “40 per cent of the cases of pornographic sites, videos or even images with the same content are with Albanian children, while over 60 per cent of the cases of pornography are with non-Albanian children”.
The 15-17 year-old age group is most affected by cyber incidents, it said.
Cybercrime experts at the Albanian State Police also told BIRN: “There has been a general increase in criminal offenses in the area of cybercrime.”
In August last year, UNICEF Albania published another study, “The lost cases”, noting that between 5,000 and 20,000 referrals are made annually by international partners such as Interpol, Europol and the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children to the cybercrime department of Albanian police regarding the possession, distribution, production and use of child sexual abuse materials in Albania.
But according to official data of the Ministry of Interior, between 2016 and 2018, only 12 cases were investigated under Article 117 of the Criminal Code, ‘pornography with minors’, and only one case was ended in conviction.
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Experts told an online debate hosted by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network on Tuesday that the current regulation systems for online media in the Western Balkans are not good enough, but efforts to curb the publication of hate speech and defamatory comments must not tip over into censorship.
Media and legal experts from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia who spoke at the debate entitled ‘Case Law and Online Media Regulation in the Balkans’ also said that the application of existing legislation is inadequate.
Authorities often rely on legislation that was developed for traditional media which has not been adapted accordingly, or on self-regulation which is not mandatory.
Lazar Sandev, an attorney at law from North Macedonia argued that “those who create public opinion regarding matters of public interest do not uphold any standards, they do not have any legal knowledge”.
Jelena Kleut, associate professor at the University of Novi Sad’s Faculty of Philosophy, said that in Serbia there is lack of willingness to apply standards in online media, and noted a difference between rich and poor media outlets as well as responsible and not responsible ones.
“The wealthy, irresponsible media – they have legal knowledge but they don’t care. They would rather see the complaints in court, pay a certain amount of fines and continue along, they don’t care. On the other end of the spectrum, we have responsible but poor media,” Kleut said.
The media experts also debated the controversial issue of reader comment sections on websites, which some sites around the world have removed in recent years because of a proliferation of hate speech, defamation and insulting language.
According to Montenegro’s Media Law, which came in force in August this year, the founder of an online publication is obliged to remove a comment “that is obviously illegal content” without delay, and no later than 60 minutes from learning or receiving a report that a comment is illegal.
Milan Radovic, programme director of the Civil Alliance NGO and a member of the Montenegrin Public Broadcaster’s governing council, argued that this “it is clear that in such a short period of time, if it is applied, will damage those affected, but also damages for freedom of expression”.
Edina Harbinja, a senior lecturer at Britain’s Aston University, warned that there is a conflict between regulatory attempts and media freedom, and that “this is when we need to be careful in how we regulate, not to result in censorship”.
This was the second debate in a series of discussions on online media regulation with various stakeholders, organised as a part of the regional Media for All project, which aim to support independent media outlets in the Western Balkans to become more audience-oriented and financially sustainable.
The project is funded by the UK government and delivered by a consortium led by the British Council in partnership with BIRN, the Thomson Foundation and the International NGO Training and Research Centre, INTRAC.
Seven international rights organisations sent an open letter to the Albanian parliament on Wednesday, voicing concern over reports that the ruling Socialist Party is pressing on with legislation targeting the online media, despite fierce international criticism from the Venice Commission, among others.
The seven groups, the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, ECPMF, Article 19, the European Federation of Journalists, EFJ, Free Press Unlimited, FPU, the International Press Institute, IPI, Osservatorio Balcani Caucaso Transeuropa, OBCT, and the South East Europe Media Organisation, SEEMO, urged the parliament to drop the current proposals and restart the whole process.
“We are writing to express our grave concern about the apparent plans of the Parliament of Albania to ignore the issues raised in Venice Commission Opinion No. 980/2020 of 19 June 2020, further threatening press freedom and the right to freedom of expression and to information in Albania,” the letter published on the ECPMF website, reads.
“We urge you to rethink the current legislative procedure and instead put in place a transparent process that leads to appropriate legislation that addresses all the Venice Commission’s recommendations, and to include civil society and representatives of the media throughout this process,” the letter adds.
Their letter follows a statement by local media organisations, including BIRN Albania, published last week. In that statement, the signatory organisations observed that the parliament aims to use article 86 of the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly, which says parliament should only reconsider issues introduced by the President of the Republic, to get the disputed law through. The organisations said they fear any changes conducted in this way would only be cosmetic, and would fail to address grave concerns expressed over the law.
The legislation, first proposed by Socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama as an “anti-defamation package”, aims to create an administrative body that will be empowered to order media to take down news reports over issues such as “infringing the dignity of individuals”, under the threat of heavy fines. Critics say the law could have a chilling effect on media freedom due to its broad terms.
Following parliamentary approval of the new law amid protests last December, it was blocked by President Ilir Meta, and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, PACE, asked the Venice Commission for its opinion.
The Venice Commission criticised the law in entirety and, among other things, warned that it could be used by powerful people to protect themselves from media criticism.
Unbowed by the criticism, Prime Minister Rama called again this month for speedy approval of the law, claiming defamation on online media had reached an unacceptably high level.
The rapid spread of the internet and growing use of social media in Albania has significantly affected the behaviour of existing or traditional media as well as native digital media. The emergence of online media outlets has dramatically changed the media landscape.
BIRN Albania’s latest report, “Internet Governance in Albania and Its Role In Media Freedom”, explores a number of topics where Internet governance and regulation intersect with online media, market conditions, financial regulations, access to information and data protection, and copyright and cyber-security.
The report aims to provide a clear overview of the rights and responsibility of online publications in the Internet environment and the governance of this environment by public institutions, while encouraging a multi-stakeholder debate with the goal of supporting and strengthening freedom of expression and the professional practice of journalism on the Internet.
Freedom of expression and media freedom under threat
Photo: Raphael Nogueira
Although there is no specific law on online media in Albania, constitutional principles on freedom of expression and freedom of the press do extend their rights and restrictions to online outlets, while the regulatory environment on Internet governance, both domestic and foreign, influences how these outlets operate and do business.
Newly proposed regulations and amendments on the subject met strong resistance from the journalistic community and rights organisations in Albania and abroad. These moves were also contested by the European Commission and the Council of Europe.
In spite of the government’s attempts to shrink the space for professional journalism, freedom of expression and media are clearly defined in the Albanian constitution as well as in the international treaties and agreements that the country has ratified.
While Albania’s broadcast media and the press are controlled by a handful of powerful families, which have affiliated businesses in regulated markets, online media outlets are more diverse.
Many are start-ups owned by journalists, and allow more diverse viewpoints and reporting angles.
But, even though online media have become one of the main sources of information in Albania, Albanian legislation currently provides no definition of online media. Nor does the audio-visual media law or the e-commerce law.
Access to the internet is vital to free speech
Access to the Internet as a means of communication to exercise freedom of expression and information is guaranteed in Albania in the context of the domestic legal framework.
A survey conducted in 2019 on the use of information technology by families and individuals conducted by the Albanian National Institute of Statistics, INSTAT, showed that 82.2 per cent of all households now have access to the Internet, compared to 80.7 per cent a year earlier, and 66.4 per cent in 2016.
INSTAT found that 68.8 per cent of all individuals aged between 16 and 74 in Albania had used the Internet within three months of the survey being conducted, 87.1 per cent of whom used it daily.
Article 1, of the Law on Electronic Communications in Albania, no. 9918, of 19 May 2008, refers to net neutrality under the principles of the law – but it contains no specific provisions on how to enforce it.
Emerging from the same problematic principles that underpin net neutrality, The Electronic Communications law does not regulate zero rating; it is left to the companies to negotiate or offer such services.
One service previously excluded by data caps from ISPs in Albania has been Facebook Zero. The lack of clarity from the government regarding zero rating is concerning, as it is particularly relevant to journalism and media organisations.
Domain registration is linked to press freedom
Domain name management and administration is central to broader Internet governance, and directly affects press and media freedom within a country.
Domain registration in Albania for the ccTLD .al is regulated in the Electronic Communications law. It stipulates that domain names are registered “to serve the general interest of the public” and “to ensure especially the protection of intellectual property”. Web hosting companies are also mainly regulated by the the Electronic Communications law.
The main institution administering the .al ccTLD and its subdomains is AKEP. This maintains and updates a list of reserved and forbidden names and collects data and documents from the physical persons and legal entities that register.
The BIRN report states that blocking domain names is a key form of censorship imposed around the world, and is often used to prevent access to information and silence dissent.
Social media companies have unfair tax advantage
Online media in Albania operate on the same financial rules and tax regimes as other businesses registered in the country. No specific tax or financial rules, subsidies, or incentives are designed specifically for online media outlets.
Albania’s legal framework does not provide for any form of subsidies for journalism and the media, either for legacy or online media outlets.
Social media companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter, along with other online media not registered in Albania, should have a registered agent in the country and pay a tax rate similar to native online media outlets.
The BIRN report notes that the lack of taxation of their advertising products gives them de facto an unfair advantage to local online media outlets; these are taxed at the rate of 20 per cent.
Online media in Albania have often been the target of verbal abuse by politicians at the highest levels of power. Research conducted by BIRN also indicates that the biggest factors influencing the Albanian media’s editorial line are the political and economic interests of media owners, which in turn place pressure on many journalists to self-censor.
Thus, media outlet ownership transparency is important for the public to identify any political and economic bias that might influence the coverage of a certain topic or issue, as well as recognise conflicts of interest.
However, Albanian legislation does not provide any specific provision for the public disclosure of the ownership of media outlets.
Restrictions on freedom of expression online
Photo: Unsplash/Laura Lee Moreau
Although the Albanian constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights recognise fundamental rights to freedom of expression and freedom of the media, they also provide for proportional restrictions.
Defamation in Albania remains a criminal misdemeanour, punished by fines, while the main legal instrument against hate speech is the provision of several anti-hate crimes and misdemeanours in the criminal code. Hate speech is also addressed, albeit indirectly, in Albania’s anti-discrimination law.
In the context of the infringements, copyright violations are considered one of the biggest problems facing the online media, followed by the lack of quality information and financial difficulties.
Criteria and conditions for copyright protection are listed in the report. Despite the legal protection granted to audio and visual products via copyright, the country’s copyright law (Article 12.1) does not protect news and press information, both offline and online, which are simply informative in nature.
Journalists safeguard the public’s right to know
The growing number and influence of online media have certainly given journalists more space and freedom to express their views and report on different issues in ways that might not always be welcome in traditional media.
Journalists have the right to inform about news of public interest, preserving the essence of information, but they are also obliged to avoid references to personal data when possible. All actions taken by journalists should be shaped by the public interest.
The report lists two sets of special instructions and considerations (Protection of minors and court and crime reporting) for journalists on how to protect personal and sensitive data.
The most recent Code of Ethics for Journalists was drafted in 2018. This was done by the Albanian Media Institute, AMI, with the support of the project Reinforcing Judicial Expertise on Freedom of Expression and the Media in SouthEast Europe, JUFREX – a joint initiative led by the European Union and the Council of Europe.
According to a set of Ethical Guidelines for Online Journalism , online journalism must respect all professional code of ethics and the core values of journalism, irrespective of the forum or format it uses.
No clear rules for content removal
Recognising that content moderation and removal policies are widely debated – and divisive – on the global level, the report provides a non limited list of potential solutions that may contribute to a healthier online environment.
In Albania, no specific law explicitly regulates the filtering and blocking of illegal Internet content. However, the provisions of several laws regulate illegal Internet content. The Electronic Communications law empowers the AKEP to enforce its requirements.
There is no official or published list of what is considered illegal and/or harmful content, or of the competent authorities that can ask the ISPs to remove illegal content. For this reason, the key institutions mandated by law to order the removal of illegal content are listed below, based on the caseload developed by AKEP.
Judicial and law enforcement agencies can request the removal of illegal content based on the relevant articles in the criminal code. One of the most problematic requests from law enforcement agencies, passed on to ISPs through AKEP, was the blocking of the domain of the popular online media Jeta Osh Qef (Joq.al) following the deadly 26 November 2019 earthquake in Albania.
The report also mentions other relevant agencies and bodies dealing with content removal, such as the Audio-visual Media Authority, AMA, and the Commissioner for Personal Data Protection.
Progress in cybersecurity legislation
Albania has made significant progress in recent years in developing the ICT sector and the use of information technology, IT.
Albania ratified the Convention on Cybercrime – known as the Budapest Convention – on 25 April 2002, with Law no. 8888. Its criminal code is mainly in line with this important international instrument, containing several specific articles dedicated to fighting cybercrime.
Although not directly related to cybersecurity, the criminal code also details the consequences of engaging in various anti-social electronic and/or online activities.
Another important law governing cybersecurity is Law no. 2/2017, “On Cybersecurity”; the entity responsible for applying this law is the NAECCES.
The law’s main aim is to achieve a high level of cybersecurity within Albania by defining security measures, rights, and obligations, as well as mutual cooperation between entities operating in the field of cybersecurity.
Albania’s Special Prosecutors on Monday said they seized scores of properties of Ylli Ndroqi, one of the main media owners in the country, who has crossed swords with the government, suspecting they were the product of international drugs trading. Among the seized assets are two TV stations, Ora News and Channel One.
“We have reasons to suspect that Ylli Ndroqi (alias Xhemail Pasmaciu) and his relatives have unjustified wealth that might have originated in his criminal activity in Albania, Turkey and Italy,” prosecutors said.
Several apartments, cars, including a Rolls Royce, as well as 100,000 square metres of forested area near Tirana were seized along with the TV stations. Police forces were stationed on the premises of Ora News on Monday afternoon.
The seized television stations have hosted several talks shows critical of the Socialist government of Prime Minister Edi Rama who has made no secret of his frustration with critical media.
Ndroqi has exchanged words personally with Rama ally Tirana Mayor Erion Veliaj on social media, Ndoqi accused Veliaj of attempting to silence his journalists while Veliaj accused Ndroqi of attempting to blackmail him.
Alban Qafa, a defence attorney for the suspect, told journalists that his client’s wealth was legitimate and the seizure order would be fought in the courts. “Ndroqi’s wealth has legitimate sources and we will prove this,” Qafa said, adding that his client suspected that the seizure was the result of a political attack.
Brahim Shima, director of Ora News, also considered the move a politically motivated attack, due to his station’s editorial line.
According to prosecutors, Ndroqi was arrested in Turkey in 1998 under the name Xhemail Pasmaciu while data about his suspected criminal activity were collected by the joint collaboration of Turkish and Italian authorities.
Ndroqi is not currently under arrest or charged as yet.
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