Prime Minister Edi Rama’s remarks at meeting with high-ranking officials of the State Police structures:

 

Today I have asked to address you and all State Police officers.

First, a parenthesis. We are going through a moment when an offensive of both abominable and dangerous defamations and fabrications has been launched on the public and, unfortunately, against the State Police. The democratic world knows them by the name “fake news”, that are false stories which spread just like an epidemic virus thanks to the digital channels and sewerage. This is quite new to the whole world coming along with the digital era and the world’s greatest powers are struggling to cope with this evil. For us, what is new is its dimensions, the fake news, or defamation has historically existed among from the earliest times, on the headlines of the mainstream press and TV news broadcasting.

However, I am not here to deliver a speech on the phenomenon of slander and its causes today. No.

I am here today because the craze of defamations and fabrications should in no way affect your work performance.

I am here because an intense campaign of mud ball throwing and shelling against this building and the filth they throw and pelt with your uniforms with, “narcotics police”, and so on and so forth, should in no way and not for a single moment distract this force from its mission and objective.

I am here because the political and media offensive aimed at creating the perception of insecurity and uncontrollable crime among the citizens of this country deserves a counter-response and this counter-response is the immediate multiplication of crackdown and raids on criminals and any law offender, from the so-called strongmen of the kind who shed blood right at the heard of Tirana’s Bllok neighbourhood  to the offenders who violate the traffic rules, harm the environment, or threaten in a way or another the community’s security and peace.

The roaring political crisis, aimed at poisoning and obscuring important issues from the public eyes, represents an opportunity that should be taken advantage of in order to give out everything, a strong impetus to gather and join forces and inner energies and take the State Police to another level.

The crime rate is gauged by statistics, but yet it is also evaluated as a perception.The today’s statistics, compared to the past, are on our side. The statistics clearly speak for themselves showing where the country stood and it stands today regarding the crime rate year by year. But, the harsh political and media battle to create an opposite perception won’t stop, neither it will calm. It will escalate further with more defamations, more fabrications, with more audio and video actors. “Crime, crime, crime”. “Crime” in press conferences. “Crime” on postings. “Crime” on speeches, debates and comments. “Crime” from morning through night.

How come?!

It is quite simple. It is called desperate struggle for power of a drowning person who is seeking to drag you down too at any cost, resorting to any means to take power that “could be seized through force” when not through vote.

However, this is not part of the State Police job. This is my and the government’s job. Your duty is to respond to this political and media barbarity and, more clearly than ever, yield more and faster results in every direction.

I don’t know whether it has happened for you to jointly watch on TV some comparative statistics on the State Police performance over the years. Of course, each of you on your own have also come across comparative statistics between Albania and other countries in terms of security.

I took these data with me to be projected on the screen during this meeting, since crime figures are gauged by statistics, but statistics sometimes are not enough to create a perception.

A higher number of homicide cases has been recorded last year, but few has been said about the murder rate as of compared what it is being said today. Even those who today look like as if are celebrating number of murders with a barrage of accusations and slanders seemed to had left aside this issue.

Some 40 homicide cases were recorded this year, down from 43 cases during the same period of the previous year. The murder rate was even higher two years ago with 54 people assassinated. The number of murder cases was twice as high, 84 in the period from January through September 2013. Even higher in 2012, when 92 homicide cases were registered. While today 40 murder cases have been recorded during January-September period of this year compared with 2012 when this number was more than twice as high.

However, a lamentation is being spread via every channel, portal and podium seeking to nourish the idea that crime is wracking havoc, people are being killed at a rate like never before and that the police are not combating crime, but are becoming one with the crime.

Take a look at the comparison I have drawn from the official statistics sources in Europe! The crime index by cities in Europe. The data are provided by an official source the European Commission itself refers to. The crime index of Rome, Athens and many other European citizen is higher than that of Tirana.

Look at the safety index! Tirana’s safety index ishigher than that of Rome, or Athens. I considered Rome and Athens since they are our closer neighbours and we as Albanians are well familiarized with these two capitals and no Albanian citizen can say they have ever seen either in Rome or Athens such a havoc being rained down via TV channels, radios, portals and online postings.

The safety index in the region is a comparison between of today’s Albania and Albania five years ago in terms of security and safety in the region. Look, here it stands! (points table of figures)

A series of indexes are also to be found on the column showing all European countries.

Look at the crime index compared to all European countries. Albania is found there too. But look at data about Albania. The crime index in Albania is clearly, neither at the average, nor above the average, but below the average index of the countries of whole Europe. I don’t want to compile the list of countries that lag behind, but, for example, Great Britain, or Sweden, Italy, France, Bulgaria, Belgium as well have a crime index higher than Albania, but no one would ever think about taking a microphone and taint their own country’s image by ferociously attacking the Ministry of Interior, the State Police just to create a perception contrary to the reality.

Look at the safety index among the European countries! We have a safety index at an average rate. Without taking a longer time to show statistics, take a look at some interesting comparison for Albania on the whole map and such comparison have been drawn by the European Commission, and neither by me, nor by the State Police.

A higher number of people answered “yes” to the question: “has any member of your family been victim of robbery, theft, and physical aggression over the past five years?” in 2013 compared to 2018.

Look at this one: “how safe people feel in their community?” Look at Albania in 2013! It ranks bottom. While in 2018, Albania ranks a little below the European Union’s average regarding the people’s safety in the community. The safety perception.

Consider the violent crimes rate! This is Albania’s ranking back in 2013! The country ranked bottom back then. In 2018, Albania at a middle-ranking position surrounded by a not so bad friendship. This is the State Police’s ranking in terms of decision-making and actions regarding the political influence.

Look at Albania’s State Police ranking in 2013! Totally under the political influence. Today, we have jumped to a middle-ranking position along with Slovenia, Portugal, or even the Netherlands itself. So, we are not ranking at the worst possible position, are we?

Look how the State Police relation to bribery!

In 2013, we were the champions of bribery together with Ukraine, but today in 2018 we are approaching to the European Union’s average. So we have moved closer to the EU’s average compared with Croatia, or Hungary, Slovakia, or Greece, all EU member states.

Whereas here we face a problem that we are all familiar with and that is the people’s readiness to give testimony in a court room in a criminal case. This is the index we need to further improve. Yet we still rank better compared with 2013, when Albania ranked bottom along with Ukraine, with us right at the heart of Europe, and Ukraine amid the Soviet wrongdoings and the and the answer here is quite complex but is starts with the very justice reform and of course its implementation. It also includes the new measures we plan to announce against certain categories I will mention below.

I won’t take more time in providing statistics, but I would like to make a single question: all these data I mentioned are easily verifiable and it is not because I, or the Minister of Interior, appeared at a press conference, said it all and that’s it. These figures are easily verifiable, just a click away, from the official sources of the European Commission and the European Union, whom everyone refers to when it comes to the crime statistics.

Why then the Albanian citizens are not told these figures?

How come that those who are tasked with publishing and informing the public over these figures –  whenever they are released by the Ministry of Interior or the government –  they are not only unwilling to publish and comment them as top stories, just like they do when it comes to the defamation and fabrications, but they don’t event take the trouble to simply publish them.

And not only that, but sometimes they ridicule and make comments festered full of speculations and inconsolable rancour.

Whereas the opposition challenges the data we release by coming up with new defamations.

At this stage, it is increasingly clear that the politics has allied with crime, as it has been openly admitted and it is a fact that this politics of accusations, slanders and criminal fabrications discourages the police officers and encourages and inspires criminals.

But the government can’t decide on the politics its opponents play. The only thing we can choose and decide is our governing policy and the way we react to the attacks launched against us.

Our choice is clear. I am talking about the politics, though at some point we cannot shun the daily political mudslinging.

Our choice is to advance work in every direction by keeping on decisively and with greater readiness pressing ahead the battles we have embarked on and for constant reflection in the process.

Turning to what I noted first, the statistics are the thermometer that gauges the crime’s temperature, but perception is a barometer evaluating the crime situation.

I am here today to issue a clear and direct appeal and urge you all to continue with greater determination and with greater readiness than ever before, for reflection and self-correction, the effort to achieve a super-ambitious goal which we have publicly announced.

The State Police, by the end of our second term in office, should jump to the average position of the performance index of the European Union police forces in every respect.

What has been achieved to date, what the State Police’s structural statistics and data show, should serve as a stronger impetus to increase determination and restore confidence as you move further ahead along the path you have embarked on.

While our target – we have three more years before sending the ranking indicator moves up in all respects – should serve as a constant impetus for reflection and self-correction, not only because time is short, but also because what we should achieve is not easy at all.

And the latter is of a fundamental importance today. Charges, slanders, fabrications in all their falsehood cannot and should become a reason for any excuse. This climate, which is aimed at perplexing the citizens, should in no way deviate the State Police’s focus even a single millimetre, by triggering actions and influence inactions that impede work and, sometimes, taint the image of the State Police.

I will be very open and straightforward with you!

The fact that the State Police has gained independence from the ruling party is a great accomplishment of our government over the past five years. I have already said, but I will repeat – since it might be worth of – when I served as the Mayor of Tirana, the Tirana Police Director was Bilbil Mema and every time we met he used to say: “The thing is when the calls we receive from high-level politicians will end?”

Well, the State Police today is independent from the governing party.

MPs, the cabinet members and the politicians can no longer interfere when it comes to appointments to the State Police and no one of them dares to make phone calls and ask favours from anyone of you as high-ranking police officials. On the contrary, I am pleased that in certain cases, whenever they have tried to do so, the police officials have turned them down. Meanwhile, none of them dares to violate the road traffic rules.

At the same time, it is a meaningful fact that the State Police favours no one and treats the son of a MP of the governing party just like everyone else, fully abiding by the law and supporting a girl who denounced him to the police for violence and the police immediately referred the case to the Prosecutor’s Office.

A police officer was not promoted, but he was suspended for a violation of the procedure. Today, the son of the MP is right where the justice has sent him to. But however, I want also to underline that a complete reflection and direct reaction is needed to the fact that though the State Police was hit from within its own ranks by a true slanderer it took for the slander to spread and the police’s image dealing a blow that the relevant police structure acted to dismantle the defamation.

This is unjustifiable.

Why the head of the Internal Control Service (ICS) failed to act upon receiving the written defamation by a slanderer in uniform?

Why no immediate actions were launched to carry out an entire control as it did when the slanderer’s letter was made public and it turned out that the police had done their job at the very first moment.

Why a slanderer within the police ranks was afforded enough time to cause a whirlwind as he intended to after having published his slanders in the media and fled the country to seek political asylum on the grounds that he was politically persecuted?

Why this team of men who are credited for all these undeniable results I mentioned earlier should suffer the consequences of the failure of the internal control service to act on time towards the aggression launched against the state police when a serious slander was made and confused whole country for a week long?

Why the Albanian public was denied the right to learn the truth recorded in the police station’s surveillance cameras about the whole set up scene in the fantasy of a slander in uniform?Meanwhile, the security camera footage clearly shows, just like in the “No comment” newsreel footages, that the entire scene that sent all that mud wave down on the police and every one of us, and was completely a deliberate contrivance. It is not sufficing the fact that the camera footage was forwarded to the Prosecutor’s Office. It doesn’t justify the whole mud thrown to the State Police. Whole Albania was left writhing in the swirl of a fantasy about armed MPs who enter the police station and allegedly point a gun to a police officer, who the camera footage clearly shows he was neither there and nor things of that kind ever took place there.

The truth is entirely on the side of the State Police and the latter idly stays and waits to react at this new digital era by simply respecting and abiding by the legal procedure.

I guess you know the famous saying: “A lie can travel half way around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”But I cannot accept that such a filthy political craps on the police is spread everywhere, while an evidence, the security camera footage, that could have killed off all speculations, is not made public, but it is simply sent to the Prosecutor’s Office and it becomes no longer available since it is an evidence.

A video-tape purportedly showing the brother’s crime involvement here. An audio tape purportedly featuring the sister’s voice there. Another video featuring the son and a documentary showing the in-laws tomorrow. Taulant undoubtedly featured in these set ups. Crime, crime and only crime.  Fatmir (Interior Minister) involved, me too. All these defamations of alleged crimes are most likely to continue surfacing for some time. This is a crap of the abdominal illness the Albanian politics and the media suffer from. But if we, the directly accused via these so-called Babale audio and video stories, can do nothing else but send every slanderer to the court and, sometimes, even loose concentration and provide explanations, randomly useless and that that only add to the noise and the mudslinging campaign, the State Police should take all the measures not to remain untouched in its inner moral and image by this politics that has sided with the crime.

The State Police fights crime on daily basis. This is a challenge that needs to be won. The ears must be filled with wax just like Odyssey did so that he didn’t hear the sirens’ songs and whole attention and power of thought should focus on the State Police’s mission. A torn mouth just throws another Babale-like story against the State Police’s Director General in a television salon and the police’s highest authority reacts emotionally being sucked in the whirlwind of this political crap.

I know it quite well dear Director. Trust me, I know pretty well – as I have experienced it getting under my skin – how hard it is when publicly attacked on your dignity and honour and being accused of things that have never crossed your mind, but you fight against. Here in our Albania, not yet used to the democratic coexistence, the truth is upturned, completely overturned also thanks to the mischievous and devilish people of our political and media establishment. The very Roman law itself, the civilization and civilizations have made their choice, the democratic one, since the ancient Rome era. The burden of proof is always on the person who brings a claim, and not on the defendant, according to the Roman law, while the today’s accusers shamelessly claim you are to be held accountable why someone mentions your name on the phone. However, the police’s highest-ranking authority should in no case react towards a biodegraded politician and an ordinary criminal, currently standing trial on fraud charges. You should have had immediately address to the Prosecutor’s Office, ready to listen to the slanders against you and, why not, file a defamation lawsuit against this biodegraded politician. It is justice to decide about the rest, while your mission is to move heaven and earth to ensure that every criminal is sent before the justice and not engage in debates with the slanderers.

That’s why I suggest you Mr. Director that any defamation against the State Police, once verified as such, be sent to the court, by immediately informing the public opinion. The relation between the police force and the defamations starts with the verification and ends with informing the public about the respective defamation lawsuit. The individual statements have nothing to do with the functioning of the State Police. The State Police we have today will become the police we want in the future as part of our ambition and vision and concentration, dignity and meritocracy is needed in each step we take in this extremely hard endeavour.

Focus means concentration on achieving and meeting the performance targets at any cost.

There are many projects that need to move forward and for me the projects directly related to the public are the most important ones. For example, the Traffic Police has already drafted a very important reform designed to improve its performance and the number of female traffic police officers should grow. I don’t know what statistics show on this respect, but perception is always important.

The average age of the police force asa whole should be reduced significantly. The number of officers who are physically fit for that task has declined.

The handwritten fine books are no longer to be used by the traffic police now at the digital age and the era of body cams, the road safety and security cameras. No excuses for the new plan on the radio communication system, the unified emergency number and a number of other projects and objectives should be met as soon as possible and therefore focus is needed.

Dignity means we cannot accept it, accept no one who puts on your uniform and the community is struck by fear whenever he leaves home. It is the so-called “strongmen” the ones who should fear the State Police.

Dignity means that every girl, mother, parent, child and every family feel themselves home when being at evert public space of this country, while the so-called “strongmen” should feel in a foreign land and think twice whenever speaking or taking a step on the roads, parks, restaurants or the city’s bars. Dignity means that no criminal in this country becomes an urban legend as a racketeer, extorter, or a conqueror escorted by armed bodyguards.

For example, I don’t want, dear General Director of the State Police, to wait until the new US Ambassador arrives and reminds us in remarks that Klement Balili still remains at large. Just like I don’t want directors and police chiefs to remain in charge in areas where dignity I just talked about is seriously questioned, not only by “the strongmen” and their costly cars, but also the petty offenders who dredge from the bottom of rivers and mountains, who cut trees and sporadically build here and there illegally, dump urban waste in unauthorized sites and so on and so forth.

I know quite well how seriously are you trying to catch Klement Balili and other reptiles of the crime world under the Power of Law.  The statistics clearly show the results achieved in this endeavour and also the efforts to prevent the perpetrators of crimes against the environment, the number of which today is far lower than yesterday, but we can’t afford even when a single tree is cut down.

We can’t afford to allow any longer the quarry exploitation in Tomorr Mountain since it has been declared a protected national park. We can’t afford to allow certain individuals to dump their inert waste in unauthorized sites. We can’t afford to allow Llogara be littered with inert waste. This is the State Police. This is the State Police that imposes a penalty even on a cabinet member when violating the traffic rules and driving through a red light and this the State Police that should impose fines and penalties on anyone who violates the red line of law and order.

And what I want you to know is that not only my support is limitless, but also my quest to do much more and intensively and much faster, without looking to the left or right, taking care of nothing but just about dignity of uniform, is bigger than ever.

Last but not least, meritocracy.

The meritocracy should be the loadstar of the police force and I modestly would suggest that it is time for you to consider the opinion about the fact that “yes, we indeed have succeeded in keeping the Prime Minister, the cabinet members, MPs and politicians at bay and stopped them from promoting and appointing people to the State Police, yet we still have to cultivate the culture of individual success of each policemen and police officer.

It’s the hardest thing, it’s the biggest challenge, but yet the safest way and a lack of this culture is a threat to the unity of the organization’s goals. To put it another way, since the very first day I have been and I do remain enthusiastic about the new community policing program, but in the meantime, running the program takes its time. It is imminent to find ways to ask communities today about the police officials. This is ultimately one of the main goals of the program.

I said it at the very beginning and I am concluding my speech with a universally recognized truth, scientifically accepted and barbarically denied here in Albania, that crime rate is gauged by statistics. However, crime rate is also gauged by perception and I am convinced that at this moment it is time to put both on the balance of a genuine professional judgment in each police station across the country, because we can not afford to dwell on the statistics only and the great improvement that has been made to date, but yet totally insufficient regarding our objective.

We can’t also afford to go ahead without taking seriously into consideration the effects of this politics about the crime and which inspires crime. Crime is breathing a sigh of relief today just because of this playing politics and because of all this media barbarity hitting the state police. And what does it mean to the State Police? It means more actions to suffocate and strangle crime like never before. It means multiplied forces, energies, crackdown and new and significant results in combating the “strongmen”.

Albania is too small to allow notorious individuals of the crime world. Luckily and thanks to you, some of these notorious criminals are now behind the bars and I wish justice to do the right thing with them, but in the meantime, another part should get the message very clear. There is no peace between us and you, from dawn to dusk. You will confront us as soon as you leave your house .

This the message the State Police should definitely sent to these monsters and everyone else cooperating with them from Vermosh to Konispol. This is indispensable.

On the other hand, there are certainly 1001 other things to be done as the fight against crime is not just the frontal war by the State Police, but that is another topic. The topic I wanted to discuss with you is only the one we just talked about and whoever of you will know how to convey this message will enjoy unlimited support. Those who are unable to deliver this message should leave voluntarily.

The fight against crime should step up like never before.

Our cities, our communities should feel free like never before, not by perception, but by the idea that who rules in the bosom of their coexistence.

Thank you very much!

Respect and courage to move ahead!