Author: Denis Tahiri
It's October 12. At the threshold of a bar very close to "Air Albania", Eltoni, a 19-year-old who works in one of the many bars there, watches hundreds of Albanian fans entering the stadium. Elton should be serving customers, but the bar is empty. The conversation that takes place between him and the administrator is a prayer said in different ways. "I hope they don't close us down, because then we will do everything."", says the administrator who also looks at the flow of people. After waiting a while he answers "Not anymore mind you, otherwise they wouldn't have let all these fans into the stadium. It made no sense to shut us down."
Among the fans who stood in line to enter the stadium without any distance perimeter was Klajdi Sadushi, 24 years old. "I bought the ticket for 10 lek, we were a social group that went to see the match", says the young man who mentions that he waited in line with dozens of others for over an hour. He says no one asked or forced him to wear a mask or that they tested negative. "The police were at the door, they checked the ticket and they also did a physical check on us to make sure we didn't have any strong items, but no one asked us to wear masks, then you couldn't find anything but masks in the stadium during that match". says the young man who, when we asked him if he was afraid of catching covid in the stadium, said: "To tell the truth, I didn't even think about covid, there was that whole atmosphere there that you didn't even think that covid existed".
Ana, a 29-year-old and ardent fan of the Albanian national football team, had a similar experience to Klajdi. She remembers in detail the moment of entering the stadium. "The entrance to the stadium was preceded by a police cordon to carry out preliminary checks. When I say preliminary checks, I am referring to the prohibited means inside the stadium, but at no time were the officers required to wear a mask. In front of the respective gates, dozens of football fans were waiting, without any distance or extra care due to the fact that the match took place in a Covid situation", says the 29-year-old who, when asked if she was afraid of a possible infection, says that it was a thought that she described several times. "I passed Covid in February this year. But of course you couldn't pretend that in the middle of the crowd you didn't have at least people and contact with someone infected or that the fans cheered with masks and from a distance".
No protocol applies, 22 thousand fans in one stadium
Together with Klyd and Ana, 22 thousand people gathered at the stadium that day. For the match which took place under the conditions of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Albanian Center for Quality Journalism also addressed the media office of the Albanian Football Federation to get a statement on whether there was a permit to fill the stadium to full capacity or no. On the other hand, the Ministry of Health officially confirmed for ACQJ that at the time of the Albania-Poland match, the restrictions for the development of sports activities with 30% of the capacity for fans were in force. But even with these rules in place, the stadium was filled to 100 percent capacity. The General Directorate of the State Police confirms that permission has been given for the development of the national team match, but only with 30% of the stadium's capacity. As to why the protocol was not implemented in this case, and in the face of the facts where such activities with gatherings without restrictive measures turn into foci of infection, none of the responsible institutions gives an answer. Not a single seat in "Air Albania" turned out to be empty in this match, where the profits of the Albanian Football Federation captured an amount of about 500 million old ALL.
In the case of the match with 22 fans in the stadium, although the police permit was violated without hesitation and in flagrant conditions, sources close to the Police indicate that there is no investigation or any action by the Order Police regarding this event. But here there are shadows of doubt because if the State Police wanted to strictly implement the permission given, it was enough to look at the number of tickets sold a few days before the start of the challenge and it would have the opportunity to take measures. Even more so when just a few hours before the start of this match, the head of the AFL would declare that the tickets are 100% sold. Meanwhile, in a communication with the director of the Internal Affairs and Complaints Service, Muhamet Rrumbullaku, he confirmed to us that the SCBA has not started any process, even verifying whether there were violations by the State Police in guaranteeing the implementation of the anti-covid measures in force.
Even the Municipalities violated the order to ban gatherings
From the research of the Albanian Center for Quality Journalism, there has been a change in the official notebook the instruction of the Ministry of Health for the prohibition of gatherings. According to this change, the ban on gatherings was prohibited until 4.10.2021. But even though the order was in place, it didn't stop municipalities across the country from organizing mass gatherings. In the Municipality of Himara, there were no shortage of parties and gatherings. In this city, parties have been held, starting with religious rites and continuing with organizations such as "The Element Festival", "Southoutdoor festival" and "Turtle fest", which have gathered thousands of people. For these holidays, the Municipality of Himara officially informs us that:All activities are carried out respecting anti-covid protocols. A part of the activities that are local are foreseen by the municipality and then approved by the Municipal Council, while another part are external organizations and the municipality is supportive". But if the anti-covid rules had been respected as the Himarë Municipality claims, these parties should not even have been allowed to be organized and no longer officially supported.
On the other hand, not even the Tirana Municipality is left behind in the organization of cultural activities, when by order of the Ministry of Health, the gathering of more than 50 people in both open and closed environments has been prohibited. On September 26, the municipality of Tirana allowed a festival in the amphitheater of the lake park, while on September 14, Ermal Meta's concert organized in the "Air Albania" stadium, even though the municipality had tried to respect the rules of social distancing, failed. This resulted in repeated violations of the restrictive measures in force. But even in this case, the fines and other administrative measures were also absent.
Officially asked the Tirana municipality, it states that it has not organized concerts or other activities with the participation of more than 50 people.
"The Ministry of Health and Social Protection has issued successive orders for the prevention of gatherings in closed or open places where it is determined that: Gatherings of more than 50 people in open places are prohibited... In implementation of these orders, the Municipality of Tirana has not issued no permission for the development of cultural, sports activities, etc." this is only a part of the response of the municipality of Tirana, but what happened on the ground is completely different. ACQJ asked for more than two months the Municipality of Tirana to make available all the permits that this institution had given for the various artistic, cultural and sports activities carried out from January 1 to September 1. But these documents could not be obtained.
What do the experts say?
From the epidemiological point of view, experts in the field say that practice has shown that tolerance has increased. The clinical epidemiologist, Ilir Alimehmeti, talks about concrete cases of how gatherings affect the increase or decrease of infections.
"From the epidemiological point of view, we see that on September 13 schools were opened and if you noticed, until mid-October we had a continuous decrease in numbers, which means that the collective immunity was enough that we had no problem opening of schools, but even further, since gymnasiums, for example, have larger collections and this was not accompanied by an increase in numbers at the national level, but a decrease. Which means that we have tolerance as a population to keep schools open". he says, also giving cases where the acquired immunity of the population is defeated because of the numbers, "On October 12, we played the "Albania-Poland" match with 22 thousand people, and if you noticed, not only did the decrease in numbers stop, but the increase began, and two weeks later, on October 27, it is the peak of the increase, and then starts again and goes down for the second time, and I don't remember exactly the date when the "Tirana- Partizani" match was, again with tens of thousands present and directly two weeks ago we had an increase with a decrease, currently we are decreasing since they passed more than two weeks from that moment", says the epidemiologist Alimehmeti.
"I would say 50 clearly doesn't make sense anymore, because I just came out of a lecture where I had 150 myself, an official, university lecture which means we don't have cases, outbreaks, because this is important. It seems that the problem comes from collections larger than these, so on the order of thousands or tens of thousands. We cannot say where the tolerance is fixed, as we do not have studies of the dynamics in Albania, but there is no doubt that this number is increasing because there are more people who have passed it, who have been vaccinated for this". concludes the epidemiologist.
Regarding the gatherings that have taken place, the Albanian Center for Quality Journalism insisted that there be a statement from the Ministry of Health. However, even though one of the heads of this ministry agreed to conduct an interview in principle, the media office of this ministry did not respond to ACQJ's request until the moment of publication of this article.
The police in front of the institutions violate the law by inaction, in front of the citizen they continue with an iron hand
And now that we are approaching 2 pandemic years in Albania, where all the trust for maintaining the rules and strengthening them in the community was mostly entrusted to the State Police, it seems that the latter, when it comes to punishing public institutions that break the rules not only lack will, but also lack strength.
"Subjects and individuals, public or private, who, contrary to the orders of the competent authorities, allow the development of sports, social, cultural activities, educational excursions organized by educational institutions, public and private, inside and outside the country, are punished with a fine in the amount of 1 (one million) ALL and in case of repetition, the closure of the activity for a period of 000 months is added". This is point 8, of article 3 of normative act number 3, dated 15.3.2020. But the State Police has forgotten this point of this normative act, when it comes to the application to public institutions. Officially asked if it has taken measures against public entities in implementation of normative act number 3, as well as against the order of the Ministry of Health for the prohibition of gatherings from January 1 to September 1, 2021, the General Directorate of the State Police says that: "against state institutions, during the period January-September 2021, no anticovid administrative measures have been imposed by the State Police". Meanwhile, regarding the gatherings that are not allowed, the Police fined 9 representatives of political subjects.
The head of the Police Union, Sadedin Fishta, says that in its mission the State Police has no right to differentiate and apply the law selectively. "If they are foreseen in the normative act, the use of fines for institutions that violate the law, it should be practically seen if there have been differences from the police. The police under no circumstances have the right to differentiate and apply the law selectively", he says, adding that: "Cases of interventions from above for the impunity of institutions are not excluded, where investigative journalism must denounce whenever it finds them in the relevant institutions".
In addition to media denunciations, Civil Society also raises accusations against the implementation of the law with two standards. Rigels Xhemollari from the Civic Center, says that since the release of the normative act regarding the ban on gatherings, they have raised their voices as it was an act that limited some constitutional freedoms, but was also being implemented with two standards.
"On the one hand, the right to protest was prohibited, on the other hand, party rallies were allowed during the electoral campaign. We addressed this implementation with two standards to the People's Advocate, to the Technical Committee of Experts, who stated that protests are prohibited because there people shout and there are more sterclas, which leads to more spread of covid", he says, adding that after the opening of the schools, everything changed and that there was no measure against the universities, nor against the institutions and municipalities that have organized parties, concerts, such as the cabbage festival, the beer festival, the wine festival, which gathered citizens, while there were some individuals who took the initiative to organize people, were fined 50 million.
Rigelsi says that: "The State Police and the Technical Committee of Experts have implemented the mechanism of awareness and information and they often say that it is not good, but they have never taken administrative measures. This certainly leaves something to be desired. It is a lame, deficient law implementation, with two standards, and when they fall on the backs of the citizens, they are not fined, where they fall on the backs of party officials, the fines are spared". And on the backs of the citizens, the iron hand of the law has not been easy. From January 1 to September 1, 2021, a total of 212 fines have been imposed on bars, restaurants, fast-food and bars, after they did not implement the order given to restrict activities. While 90 fines have been imposed on night clubs, discos, lounge bars after not implementing the obligation to close them. For disobeying the music curfew, 67 service facilities were fined within 8 months.
While in fines against citizens for non-compliance with anti-covid rules, the hand of the state has been even heavier. Only for moving outside the clock after the curfew came into effect, 1371 citizens were fined, while for the non-use of wearing a mask, a total of 8 fines were imposed on citizens in just 62.648 months.
