All Democrats together against censorship Today, on 24 July 1998, at 19:00, a protest rally organized by “Union for Democracy” will be held in front of the RTSH building in “Italia” Square against the information terror and failure to implement the “Arbnori Amendment”.

DP denounces the government’s budget policies: It is a brake on the economy, a budget of unemployment, inflation and smuggling Yesterday, in Parliament, instead of MPs, there were police officers and secret-service agents. It also cancels the two scheduled sessions Anti-censorship protests Today, a large protest in front of the RTV building. The whole screen belongs to all Albanians The Democratic protesters of Tirana drove out of Parliament the MPs elected through the violence of 29 June. Parliament kept its doors closed all day yesterday. None of the parliamentarians dared come to Parliament, while its two leaders cancelled one of the parliamentary sessions scheduled for yesterday. The protest of thousands of Democrats in Tirana shut the doors of Parliament and its seats for the “committee”. Both at 10 o’clock, when a session had been called, and at 17:00, when another session had been announced, the committee MPs hid in Tirana’s clubs, with police officers and SHIK civilians appearing in their place. Naturally, the police officers are far more worthy than the representatives of the asocial or neo-socialist parliament, as are many Albanian police officers. The Democratic protesters achieved another victory yesterday by putting out that criminal den twice during the day. None of the bandits, protected by immunity, managed to withstand the large numbers of protesting Democrats. The committee operating in the middle of Tirana clearly needs to leave as soon as possible. Neither Hajdari nor the criminal Gjinushi dared come yesterday, nor the thieves Dokle, nor the communist Hasani, nor the committee’s 100 other members. They were surely searching yesterday for the party they lack, having censored and sold out in Parliament, and they do not even think that they may risk defending it. Naturally, the Democrats’ protest is peaceful. It is directed against Parliament and parliamentarians who want the opposition line, but it did not intend to clash with the bandits. Yesterday’s departure is a good omen: they should all leave and never return. Parliament must be reclaimed another time. Those MPs, the Kalashnikovs and smuggling must be removed from there. Yesterday’s victory of the Democrats gives reason to hope that at the square in front of RTSH—[text unclear]—police officers and those appointed just one day earlier, the rest of their members and emigrants in Germany would leave. TV must be returned to democracy, opened up without censorship by journalists and free of criminality. The Democrats of Tirana must stand and protest today against every action of the government of a man with a smuggling gang. The mafia clan running the country must not use this, the only screen, to squeeze everyone economically. The TV screen must be returned to the Albanians, free of the spies installed yesterday. In Albania there are not only spies whom Nani has placed at the top; there are only spies placed in positions by a criminal and destructive system, saved by morality and erupting violence. Nor is the PS entirely filled with spies. Today’s protest is further testimony in defense of freedom of speech and against the dictatorship’s censorship of the opposition. The Arbnori Amendment must be implemented; otherwise, Democrats have a duty to defend democracy in Albania to the very end. Yesterday, in front of Parliament headquarters

Omonia leaders closely linked to the bandits and their crimes. Belated political propaganda. “Albania is finished.” The commissariat [unclear], banks are set up and the socialists begin appointing “kaluadore” Inciting religious and regional hatred, and the campaign to drive away Muslims who had come from Saranda and other areas, were on the agenda. Expressions such as “what happened to the Muslim Cham in Greece will happen here” circulated quite freely. SPECIAL FEATURE ON PAGE 7

By Astrit PATOZI The director of Albania’s only state news agency, appointed by the Prime Minister and decreed by the President of the Republic, put his name to what was produced by a journalist associated with the special-war and secret-service machinery that Milosevic is using against the Albanians of Kosovo. The head of ATSH does not question it at all, but accepts as an established fact the propaganda of Belgrade’s war propaganda about the alleged presence of Arab Islamists among the Albanian fighters of the KLA. If it bore the name of Frok Çupi, this might not make much of an impression in a situation calmer than what is happening in Kosovo and other parts of Kosovo, where Albanians have been seen alive and hanging from poles after atrocities by the Serbian army. But at a time when the blood of the betrayed Albanians has not yet dried in the ravine of Padishet, and fighting is raging around Rahovec, such “news” from Nano’s agency and Medain in Tirana is a stab in the back for KLA fighters and all the Albanians of Kosovo. It is no coincidence that the director of Albania’s state news agency is doing exactly the same thing as the information fabricated by Milosevic’s secret service, which was engaged in the information sector during the war. What the director of ATSH says, using the same propaganda as the “former” propaganda outlet “Koha Jonë”—whose closeness to Nano has increased even further after a working meeting between Nikollë Leshi and Gëzim Demi—is far more radical than the bulletins that the Yugoslav embassy in Tirana distributes to the Albanian press every day. According to Nano, who is aligned with Milosevic and TANIJUG in their careful effort to make fabricated anti-Albanian news believable, the director of ATSH has no qualms about signing his name to it. Unfortunately, the Serbian theses echoed by Frok Çupi have found a place in certain newspapers and in some editions of Western television channels and news agencies. But if the Serbs have managed to get as far as Euronews or Deutsche Welle, it is because they have succeeded in making Serbian propaganda sound credible, portraying Arabs as fellow fighters of the Albanians of Kosovo. This is as much to their credit as it is a failure on the part of Albanians, who have not managed to put forward at least one account that defends the truth. However, if the Albanian press and all the other structures in Albania concerning Kosovo are incapable of facing the Serbs’ information offensive, that does not mean we should remain silent and listen, or that Tirana should simply let this pass without comment, allowing it to be believed from the outset in the key countries of Northern Europe, which do not have a major stake of their own but help other peoples with their problems. All the more so when this is done by the person paid to give voice to Tirana’s official line, since the latter has apparently never understood what his duty is. (continued on page 3)

A former bodyguard of Nano, a self-confessed murderer, brutally beats the “Albania” newspaper’s journalist in Fier ON PAGE 4

Minister Malaj and chief customs officer Bleta make a mysterious trip to the customs offices Prosecutor’s Office: “The officials’ secret trip in their personal cars to the customs offices took place one day before a group of prosecutors and investigators went to examine the documentation at all customs offices” ON PAGE 4

Why must the Director-General of Radio Television necessarily have been a Sigurimi agent? After Minga’s departure, Adrian Klosi takes the important seat In Germany, Klosi pursued several professions, the most important of which may be mentioned as translator into the languages of Albanians. Everyone who had problems with their documents was a target of his spying. Klosi also worked successfully as a “baby sitter”—in Albanian, he looked after small German children while their parents were away from home. “KJ” and SHIK attack the President’s adviser. Journalist-spies are reactivated Fatos Klosi has produced the document about Zogaj ON PAGE 8 ON PAGE 3

The KLA discussed in the US Senate ENTER - Robert Gellbard, the US envoy for the former Yugoslavia, has expressed the State Department’s concern over the presence of Marxist elements within the KLA. The US Congress Committee on Relations summoned officials from President Clinton’s administration yesterday to report on the situation in Kosovo; in addition to Gellbard, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Political Affairs Walter Slokom was also present. Speaking about the KLA and the relations the US is trying to establish with it, Gellbard said that contacts are very difficult, since the KLA is a fragmented group without a single center. Within it, he said, there are also Marxist-Leninist elements, which have caused concern to the US government.