Chairman of the Democratic Party, Sali Berisha, has sharply criticized the Audiovisual Media Authority (AMA), accusing it of being used by the government to punish the media and restrict freedom of expression. During a meeting with the heads of the Democratic Party’s branches, Berisha said that fining television studios for statements made by guests on debate programs constitutes an unacceptable interference in media freedom. He accused Prime Minister Rama of using it as an instrument of pressure against the media and journalists.
”In the past two days, the regime has taken on a Taliban-like character. Media outlets are being punished in television studios, punished for the free opinion expressed by a guest to the host, the moderator of the debate. So the narcodictator conceives of debate moderators as morality police, just like the Taliban of Afghanistan or the fanatics of the Ayatollahs.
They impose fines. The so-called AMA will go down in history as the most shameful institution, to which Edi Rama has given the functions of gendarme of thought and free speech; it is used to fine television studios if someone goes there and says nothing more or less than that Edi Rama is better to flee than to crawl and come out crawling from the office.
These are the convulsions of a narcodictatorship and a narcodictator, which, to a degree that no one other than the Taliban, who are known for the ministry of virtue and morality and so on and so forth, has adapted. Now peaceful protesters, completely peaceful, on the boulevard, were being dragged away and handed their fine slips while simultaneously trampling the Constitution of the country”, said Berisha.