From Genc Burimi

Before the ink on the state's signature, which has poured tens of thousands of euros into the surrealist delegation of 30 people who accompanied Rama to Ankara, has dried, he returns home inspired to put into practice Erdogan's lessons on how to stifle popular protests.

In the most unexpected way, the Prime Minister today brought the highest-ranking leader of the State Police before the media and the public opinion, ostensibly to inform about a special police operation of the utmost importance for national interests. The public was informed that over 10 thousand accounts on social networks have been investigated, after anonymous and not-so-anonymous persons have dared to criticize companies that benefit from tourism income, but which are often rumored to be businesses favored by the government, i.e. with owners who are friends of Edi Rama.

If the government follows this path, it opens a Pandora's Box for the most serious abuses against freedom of expression and the right to opinion. What will the Police's next step be? To research on the Internet who criticizes the government and Edi Rama and then arrest them? Exactly like Erdogan did after the 2016 "coup"?

If the criminal offense of "agitation and propaganda" against this or that business is restored, or rather revived, in the Albanian Criminal Code, the same logic could be applied tomorrow to those who criticize Edi Rama.

The threat made by the Police Director was unequivocal:

"I want to make it clear that any person found to be involved in this illegal activity, regardless of their location, will face the full force of the law."

So, not only Albanians in Albania are threatened, but also those in the diaspora.

When protesters are insulted, it is not a crime

Meanwhile, the serious investigative journalism network BIRN publishes a very interesting survey but on the contrary, it denounces cases when anonymous authors attack protesters. The BIRN article is titled "Opinions by 'anonymous' authors target Flamingo protests". It is learned that fictional names of journalists who do not exist publish articles against protesters in several media outlets such as Tema, Shqiptarja.com or JavaNews, BIRN informs.

When BIRN asked the Shqiptarja.com editorial team whether this newspaper knew and had any contact with the anonymous authors of the articles against the protests that this newspaper had published, the Shqiptarja.com editorial team's response seems quite cynical if the same answer were given to the Albanian Police.

"An opinion can also be published anonymously, without compromising the essence of the message it conveys," Shqiptarja.com replies to BIRN. And the Bollino newspaper is effectively very right. It is more important to read the message than the name of the author of the message.

A response that must be urgently transmitted to Police Chief Hitaj, whose forces have thousands of other concerns than dealing with anonymous accounts that publish messages on the internet against tourism businesses.

If the essence of these messages is that the rooms are too expensive, dirty, or other various criticisms that anyone in a democratic world has the right to make without being threatened by the police, why are the latter wasting their time? Or is the real message from Police Chief Rama: when you criticize a hotel room, see what we do to you, try criticizing me.

But Rama can also be said: with only two days of "internship" with Erdogan in Ankara, his mind came up with how to threaten social networks. If you had stayed a week, you would most likely have threatened the flamingos themselves with prison.