He said the Smart City project should be monitored by the municipality, as happens around the world.

“Edi Rama is fully bringing back the surveillance of citizens from the darkest period of the communist dictatorship. As a reminder, for entire generations who do not know, during the dictatorship, all outdoor spaces, the sides of boulevards, trees, bridges, etc., etc., were filled with what at the time we called bugs, which recorded, 24 hours a day, every conversation held by citizens sitting along those sidewalks, or on benches, or in parks. The madness of the dictatorship knew no bounds.

Today, Edi Rama has installed an even deeper and more comprehensive surveillance system than the one that existed during the dictatorship. After installing equipment for the full recording and interception of the internet in Albania, which he did on the occasion of blocking TikTok and which continues even today to totally control internet communications in Albania, Edi Rama equipped and placed at the disposal of the State Police the project called Smart City.

Smart City is a project based on robotic cameras, with very high resolution and great capabilities, which in Europe is administered entirely by municipalities and is solely intended to serve citizens. Please, here you have a robotic camera that monitors day and night the protest, the peaceful uprising of Albanian citizens and youth. Such cameras have been installed on all four sides of Tirana and all of them are not at the disposal of the municipality, but at the disposal of the police state and the State Police,” Berisha said.

The post Berisha releases footage: Rama brings back surveillance of citizens as in communism, has installed robotic cameras everywhere appeared first on Albeu.com.

In the response sent to the editorial office of “Bota sot,” Bytyçi rejects the interpretations presented in that article, describing them as one-sided and historically inaccurate, especially regarding the role of Ali Kelmendi and Ramadan Çitaku in relation to the main leaders of the communist regime in Albania.

He also expressed strong criticism of the way this topic has been treated in the media, accusing the newspaper of distorting history and using narratives that, according to him, may have a political background and a divisive impact on the Albanian public debate.

The full text

According to the Kosovo newspaper “Nacionale,” those responsible for exporting communism to Albania were supposedly Ali Kelmendi from Peja and Ramadan Çitaku from Mitrovica! Noooo! According to this newspaper, Enver Hoxha, Koçi Xoxe, Mehmet Shehu and others bear no responsibility for all the consequences of the communist regime and ideology in Albania. Instead, Ali Kelmendi is made out to be responsible, even though he died in the very first phase of the spread of communism. At least that is what this divisive and shameless newspaper claims, speaking through the mouth of Sejfi Vllamasi from Kolonja, who himself admitted in his memoir that in Vienna he was financed by the Yugoslav embassy.

The newspaper justifies the fact that Vllamasi had secretly gone to make agreements with Belgrade and attacks the Kosovars and Hasan Prishtina for opposing this action. With this article, Kosovo’s “Nacionale” seemed to me like a “Serbian Nacionale,” not an Albanian one. It even gives me the impression that this newspaper is deliberately attacking the “Kosovars” of the 1920s in order to justify Edi Rama’s pro-Serbian and anti-Kosovo positions and actions over these 13 years! Shamelessness apparently knows no bounds! So I had one piece of advice to give them: Go to Belgrade or Athens and register this newspaper there, because the name “Nacionale,” with this content, suits you better in the Serbian or Greek capital!

The post Enver Bytyçi lashes out at an article in “Nacionale”: The history of communism is being distorted for political interests appeared first on Albeu.com.