Dozens of police officers surround the newspaper’s offices The entire editorial staff of “Koha Jonë” spent last night at the police station Such events have happened only in Chile TIRANA — An unprecedented event in the history of the Albanian and European press. Last night, more than 33 journalists and employees of the newspaper Koha jonë were forced by a large number of police officers to leave their workplace and end up at Tirana Police Station No. 2. More than 50 police officers and an endless number of police vehicles surrounded the newspaper building at around 10 p.m. Without presenting any search warrant or authorization to enter our headquarters, the officers, carrying batons and wearing bulletproof vests, drove all the journalists and employees into the corridor and checked their passports. They were then taken into the editorial office’s courtyard and crammed into vans, starting with director Nikollë Lesi and ending with the secretaries and the switchboard operator. For three hours, the entire editorial staff, who were working on putting out today’s issue, were kept in the corridors and cells of this police station. Meanwhile, the police also searched the director’s home and impounded the vehicles and drivers of this newspaper’s press-distribution agency. After being kept for more than an hour in the station’s cells, offices and corridors, the journalists were called in for questioning one by one. Questioning began with the women. The officers of the Judicial Police first questioned the journalists, typesetters, compositors, secretaries and switchboard operators. Then, one after another, all the journalists were questioned for more than two additional hours. Throughout this time, Deputy Interior Minister and Police Director Agim Shehu, Tirana Prosecutor Adnand Xhelili, and many SHIK officials and employees were seen in the station’s corridors. The investigators’ questions mainly concerned when and how they had learned the news about the car-bomb explosion at the Vefa Company supermarket, what they had done afterwards when they went to work, whom they had met, where and what they had discussed, and with whom they had had coffee. While the questioning continued, all the drivers of “Koha Jonë” transport company, “Press Transport”, were also summoned from their homes. Police employees said that, among other things, the whole purpose of last night’s operation was to prevent the “KJ” newspaper from coming out and to stop the distribution of other newspapers to the districts. The “imprisonment” of our entire editorial staff for several hours is an unprecedented case in Albania and beyond. We know of such incidents only from Chile or some similar country. We are unable to explain what connection the journalists, secretaries or cleaners in our editorial office had with the car bomb planted in the centre of Tirana. Since such an operation was carried out last night only against the newspaper “Koha Jonë”, we are compelled to declare that this is another step intended to terrorize and put pressure on this newspaper and its employees. It is unforgivable for tragic disasters organized by terrorist forces to be used to attack press workers and prevent a newspaper from being published. The press has always condemned extremist acts such as yesterday’s car bombing in Tirana, and these must under no circumstances serve as a pretext for the police to terrorize free journalists.

After the detention of the staff of “Koha Jonë” Statement by the chairman of the Association of Professional Journalists The chairman of the Association of Professional Journalists of Albania, Preç Zogaj, who witnessed the detention of his colleagues from the newspaper “Koha Jonë” at Police Station No. 2, stated after midnight last night: “Public opinion expects the criminals behind today’s massacre to be caught, not the independent press to be blocked. By playing on the public’s wounded feelings, an unforgivable connection is being made here between things that have nothing to do with one another. This is grave, very grave. But I say this: whoever thinks of dipping their pen in the blood of the massacre’s victims in order to sign the destruction of the free press will be unmasked. Our association is determined to defend freedom of the press without wavering in the face of any fascist-communist-style aggression. All of Europe and the USA are with us.”

A car bomb with 50 kg of TNT causes more than 700,000 dollars in material damage The largest terrorist act in Albania is recorded Two after the explosion in central Tirana. Photo: Reuters

Frrok Çupi, the first editor-in-chief of Albania’s first opposition newspaper, “Rilindja Demokratike”, on his way back from Police Station No. 2 this morning, recalls and draws a parallel between the night the first issue of “RD” came out and the night of 26 February, when the entire staff of the independent newspaper “Koha Jonë” was taken away in vans and escorted to the police station… “On 5 January 1991, when the first issue of RD came out, it was raining; tonight is a cold, starry night. That night, we held the first Albanian opposition newspaper in our hands; tonight we have to write in the newsroom to put together tomorrow’s paper. That night, even if they had arrested us in the street, it would not have mattered much, because the newspaper had begun its journey. But tonight they took us all to the police before we had even made the newspaper, before we could leave the testimony of our profession on our absence from the scene. There is another difference: that was the time of the dictatorship of the proletariat, whereas this period is not called that; today we are in a democracy. And one more difference: throughout that whole period, not a single journalist was arrested. There are many differences between these two nights. I cannot forget the friends who were with me, who tonight are no longer here with us at the police station. Tonight only Preçi, Armandhi and Emini are among them. Saliu, for example, our friend from the beginnings of democracy, is not here; he is the President of the country and should be resting at this hour while we are returning from the Police District. Back then, on 5 January 1991, he phoned me at home and congratulated me on the RD newspaper. He also told me about the difficulties he had gone through to buy the paper. Now they deliver the newspapers to his office, including our newspaper, so that its voice can reach him, and our newspaper too, so that he can have it at home. We are missing other friends tonight as well: Gramozin is in America; Azemti’s home phone is not working; Emini phoned Leka Meksin but did not find him at home; Neritani said, ‘I might come along after you tonight’; Sokrati—the printer who cut his hand that night and washed the printing house with blood—nobody knows where he is, since he never shouted about being a torchbearer of democracy. I thought of the printers, and again some others came to mind who are not with us tonight. There are many people we remember tonight, and who are missing from us. Fortunately, not many of our friends are absent from the “Koha Jonë” newspaper tonight—only Nikolla, as well as two editorial managers whom they kept at the police station. Many things separate us tonight from the first issue of RD. That was a time so difficult that the only thing we did not experience was prison. These different things are different about tonight. I think that even on the most difficult night, tonight we should try to find differences from the difficult past. All Albanians are thinking in terms of comparing one evil with another; let us dare to move towards something better, even if it is only a small step.”

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