We will not let them! They will not make it!

We will not let them! They will not make it!

Adriatik Kelmendi

Simply put: There is nothing disturbing about the operation of Klan Kosova. Klan Kosova is a Kosovo media outlet employing more than 200 citizens of the Republic of Kosovo and broadcasting news and other programs that promote and engage for the good of Kosovo, with over 100,000 hours of airtime.

The work of Klan Kosova is public. On the screen, on the radio, online portal, in social networks. And certainly, like any free media in a democratic country, Klan Kosova maintains a critical and whatch-dog approach towards various phenomena within the institutions of the Government and society, regardless of the ruling or opposition party.

For this reason, today Klan Kosova is the most followed medium in the Republic.

What does this mean?

Attempted intimidation.

If we do this to a media like Klan Kosova, imagine what we do to others.

Albanians have also shed blood to achieve freedom. Generations of journalists have fought at all costs to preserve freedom and independence even during Milosevic’s time, the war, UNMIK and all governments. Free speech, free thought. The authorities can always find an excuse to silence a journalist, a media. Today they said that it was something about a passport, tomorrow a wrong question at a press conference, the day after tomorrow the color of some television logo.

A power that aims to silence the media, free speech, apprehends the institutions to execute the mission to the end. Initially, through a speculative portal led by party militants, then through regulatory bodies of the media with their people installed there.

But we thought we live in a democracy.

That silencing of media only happens in countries like Russia and Belarus, Serbia and North Korea, not in our Kosovo, not to the people whose ideal to live freely has never been suppressed. And no one will be able to ever suppress it.

It happened one another time during my work as a journalist that the government tried to shut the media down. It was 1999. And the power was that of Milosevic. Even then, an excuse had been found. Two published articles, which were translations from the Serbian news agency Beta. Using these, Milosevic took to court the daily Koha Ditore with the aim of closing it down. Then on March 24, his forces entered the newspaper building, killed the guard and destroyed everything. Milosevic temporarily closed the media, but after a few weeks we continued working in Tetovo and here we are today, all journalists, giving the best to the profession, but also making Kosovo a place with the best media in the region.

I thought that those times would never come back. I had thought that, on June 12, 1999, freedom had finally arrived.

As of yesterday, this achievement of generations is put under the most serious threat ever. In Kosovo, we claimed to be free.

However, Kosovar journalists have passed the exam. Not once. Many times.

Unfortunately, Kosovo got the biggest stain, that there are powers that intend to close the media. As in places like Russia and Belarus, as in Serbia and North Korea.

We will not let them! They will not make it!