Artan Rama – Analysis
When, at the head of a small group of journalists, I decided to leave Vizion Plus television in protest after the owners banned the broadcast of an investigative report in 2016, the departure became the epicenter of a public debate on freedom and conditions of the media. In a short time our group gained popular support; the names and work of the journalists received great attention and appreciation. But in two weeks the noise died down. The event went down in history and the details were archived in the collective memory. The media, as before, continued to serve the government, while the government continued its daily propaganda. The only ones who changed were us: the team of "Públicus" journalists.
After that, only a part of us went back to the media. Others changed professions, while I started working, from then until now, as an independent journalist.
This story of eight years ago came back to my memory this December during a conference held in Tirana on whistleblowers. It was organized by the Center for the Study of Democracy and Governance (CSDG) with the support of the Balkan Trust for Democracy and USAID and aimed at developing a dialogue between public authorities, non-governmental organizations and experts, to strengthen whistleblowing and the fight against corruption.
Whistleblowers, in the sense of law no. 60/2016 "On Whistleblowing and Protection of Whistleblowers" are civil servants who report suspected corrupt practices to the institutions where they work, of which they are aware.
The journalists of "Públicus" cannot be considered real whistleblowers, but going public exposed them. For serious whistleblowers, exposure can prove fatal.
"Their goal should not be to go public, but to make public the phenomenon they signal", advises Arjan Dyrmishi from CSDG. According to him, almost all whistleblowers are victims of revenge, which in a certain way marks their career.
I did it last year a documentary on the state of alerts in Albania. Although few, in the last five years three cases stood out. The first was doctor Ilir Allkja, an emergency doctor, who had denounced maladministration practices at the National Emergency Medical Center. The second was the veterinarian Ardian Koçi, director of the regional agency of protected areas who had opposed abusive practices in the Ministry of Tourism, Environment, and the third case concerned the editorial staff of Lapsi.al, an information platform whose journalists had denounced the unauthorized acquisition of citizens' personal data by the socialist party for electoral purposes.
In all three cases, the reaction of the authorities had been severe. Doctor Allkja was fired, while director Ardian Koçi was removed from the administration of daily affairs, being occupied by other people, which forced him to resign. Meanwhile, the servers of the Lapsi.al computer platform risked being seized, after the Special Court approved the request of the Prosecution to seize them. They were saved at the last moment, thanks to the suspension of the decision by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).
But the testimony of doctor Allkja showed that the pressure came from another direction as well. In addition to the authority from above, some of the attacks, mostly verbal, although unorchestrated, came from citizens on the street. "There were some of them who threw insults at me, with harsh words", says the doctor.
It is not easy to explain the origin of this aggressiveness towards those involved in the defense of the common.
"When it comes to the common, people's minds go to the communist past in Socialist Albania", - explains Fjola Graçi, a young journalist who leads The voice. him. In fact, even the media cannot be exempted from responsibility.
When the law was approved eight years ago, the media talked about spies and not whistleblowers, which damaged the process before it even started. But the tradition of referring under this connotation continues even today.
"Just like the whole society, the media does not go deeper and confuses the secret work of whistleblowers with the secret work of spies in the totalitarian communist state", - argues Graçi from Zeri.ai.
"What public good has come to the Albanian public interest, after all these years?" - asks Dyrmishi from CSDG. More than a question, it's obviously a quote. Dyrmishi is one of the best connoisseurs of the initiative for whistleblowing and the protection of whistleblowers, but in the eight years since the law was passed, questions about the effectiveness of whistleblowing have increased. "None of the alerts have ended up in the Court", - he states.
The High Inspectorate for the Declaration and Control of Assets and Conflict of Interest (ILDKPKI) that oversees and monitors the legal rules and standards for whistleblowers and their protection is a deeply unreformed institution. Annual reports on the state of signaling are poor and almost devoid of data. At this point they do not differ much from the multitude of reports of other public institutions, which often hide the problem, instead of exposing it.
I tried to meet the leaders of this institution to extract more valuable data for the public, but the effort did not yield any results. For ILDKPKI bureaucrats the spirit of closure is a mechanism to justify the lack of accountability. According to Dyrmish, ILDKPKI is an agency with a punitive nature and does not match the support that this authority should give to whistleblowers and whistleblowers. For a long time, he has suggested the transfer of responsibilities to another state institution.
Whistleblowing is a powerful weapon in the fight against corruption, but the public utility of whistleblowing is not receiving the attention it deserves. Many of the members of the responsible units in the state institutions that monitor the alerts, participants in the conference, remained silent, avoiding being in the eye. The few who did get involved showed vagueness and a lack of training in dealing with whistleblowing. For this reason, almost all whistleblowers have directed their whistleblowing to the media. But going public does not guarantee their legal protection, prompting command campaigns of denigration and persecution.
"Whistleblowing is not a one-off," says Mark Worth from the European Center for Whistleblowers' Rights. The signal should not be consumed in public. Their protection remains just as important as signaling, he continues.
Worth has significant experience defending whistleblowers. I had a phone conversation with him last week, in an attempt to move from a local reality to a broader perspective of involvement. As one of the coordinators of the Coalition for the Protection of Whistleblowers in Southeast Europe (SECWP), he finds that Albania is an atypical and not very favorable case in cultivating and supporting whistleblowers, compared to other small states, mainly from the former Yugoslavia. But he adds that protections should not aim to alienate whistleblowers or change their lives.
"Whistleblowers are often emotionally involved. This is wrong! In this way they are consumed and their lives are changed forever. So we have to protect them, in the first place, from exposure, otherwise they will be fired and protection becomes extremely difficult", concludes Worth.
There is no shortcut to a consistent alert. The illusion that improving the law can improve the situation of whistleblowers must be put aside. Can we look elsewhere? Can we improve the instruments that can improve the bed in which the signaling can grow? These were some of the questions asked at the conference held this December in Tirana. The answers came in the form of recommendations and the headline was Media.
- Yes! Media is the key!
Failing to directly increase the number of whistleblowing, let's improve the media to provide public servants with an opportunity for consistent whistleblowing; to build an independent media and a strategic alliance reporter-signaler; to provide support for whistleblowers not to be consumed publicly, but to continue whistleblowing, not just once, but always. But first, as journalists, let's give whistleblowers a moral platform where they feel not only protected, but fulfilled.
