Beware of those who do not take you to court for terrorism

Since we published the names of those organising the campaign against tourism businesses in Albania, I have received many messages by inbox, email and phone.

So let us be clear, and leave no room for those trying to disguise this as freedom of opinion.

This is not about a customer going to a restaurant, a hotel or any other business and leaving an honest review. This is about activists of the “revolution” circulating lists of businesses to be destroyed. Within 12 hours, thousands of fake reviews were posted by people who had never set foot in those businesses, dragging Google ratings down from five stars to one.

That is terrorism against the tourism industry.

I repeat: this is not about people using a service and then reviewing it. It is about people who listen to Arlind Qorri, Andi Bushati, Agron Shehaj, Gjergj Erebara, Andi Tepelena, Arben Kola and other inciters of hatred against business, and who think they are serving Albania by damaging its tourism sector.

In the WhatsApp group created by Fatos Lubonja for the revolution, one woman openly called for businesses to be attacked and shared the list of targets. Hundreds of intellectuals in that group said nothing. Nor did the Democratic Party MPs in the group, who pretend to be on the right.

So they know exactly what this is.

They shared it themselves. These are instructions for collective punishment, not individual reviews.

Beyond being terrorism punishable under Albanian law, and treated even more seriously under Western laws, this exposes a frightening view of political freedom in Albania: the belief that anyone who is not with you must be destroyed.

We have lived under such a system before. Even that system had rules for executions and internments. It was not left to just anyone. Enver Hoxha chose the enemy. Manush Myftiu interned people. Hysni Kapo or Mehmet Shehu sent people to the firing squad.

Now Albania’s new Enverists have handed that power to every idiot who thinks he holds the fate of Albanians in his hands.

Every reaction I have received — every single one — has come from people apologising and asking for their exposed names to be removed, saying they are ready to withdraw the reviews they wrote under orders from the revolutionary command.

Some of them I understand. They may have been swept up in the excitement of the moment. Some turned out to be acquaintances. Some, worse still, were people I had helped.

That is Albania. But I am glad that, individually, they behave like human beings, even if collectively they behave like thugs. That is what their instigators have done to them.

This is now a criminal matter, and it will be dealt with by justice, despite the wishes of the revolutionary command, which wants the street to settle it.

The street is a dangerous path. If 100 kamikazes of this revolution have written 1,000 fake reviews without even knowing where they posted them, the businesses they attacked have the traces of those reviews. They will not forget them easily.

Instead of seeking refuge in justice and perhaps escaping with a light sentence, the offenders are choosing the harder road: the street.

If this were being done at the peak of the tourist season on behalf of Greece, Turkey or anyone else, at least the logic would be clear. You might even assume someone was being paid, as happens with some Kosovo-based campaigns at the start of every season, when they use the moment to take out their anger on Albania.

But doing this because you were ordered by people who want to govern Albania tomorrow means planting the seed of civil conflict. It means making it impossible for any business to develop in this country.

If political camps begin using their kamikazes to destroy the businesses of citizens who do not vote for them, then everything here will turn to ash.

These people never stop attacking those they call party operatives, by which they mean Socialist voters. But now they are policing the Albanian economy themselves, trying to ruin it. This is not only a political crime. It is an economic crime.

And these are the people who want to govern Albania by force, by setting the country on fire, by coming to power with coffins on their shoulders.

To attack businesses because they are not with the revolution, when most of them do not even know Edi Rama, is to build a new Albania where you must know Arlind Qorri, Agron Shehaj and this gang of new political extortionists — or else leave the country.

In other words, the “new Albania” they are demanding on the boulevard is one hundred times worse than the Albania of Sali Berisha, Fatos Nano or Edi Rama.

They want an Albania where people must worship these political terrorists. An Albania without political freedom, without dissent, and above all without businesses that refuse to agree with them.

Do not be afraid of the investigations and lawsuits filed against you. The maximum penalty for coordinated attacks intended to damage a business can go up to six years in prison.

Be more afraid of the personal reactions of business owners towards each person used in this campaign, including the organisers — most of whom want to live like millionaires themselves while imposing their terrorism on ordinary people.

Beware of those who do not take you to court. Beware of those who do not confront you publicly. They may be behind you without you knowing it.

Thank those who take you to court. They not only free you from the burden of guilt; they may save your life and turn you into a useful example for society.

Being hired as an assassin used to be a communist trade for a handful of paid killers. But an army this large, criminalised for political purposes, is an assault on Albanian society. It plants a conflict that may one day reach everyone’s front door.

It is easy to say that whoever is with Edi Rama will pay. But it is even easier to say that whoever is with Arlind Qorri or Agron Shehaj will pay, because there are far fewer of them.

Stop this massacre before it is too late for those organising it. This is not a Facebook quarrel over some teenage romance. This is terrorism that pushes Albania into a spiral in which those summoning the fire will be the first to burn.

Many of their fake reviews are already being removed by Google after complaints, and normality will return within two days. But their names will never be forgotten by those who felt attacked by them for no reason.

Can someone tell me what Altin of Mrizi i Zanave has to do with Edi Rama, that you would attack Albania’s best agrotourism business?

What does Arbana Osmani have to do with Edi Rama, that you would attack her business?

What does Hupi towerr in Bulqiza have to do with any of this — a former emigrant who returned to Albania, rebuilt his father’s house, and is now being punished in the name of these boulevard kamikazes who claim to be coming from the diaspora?

There he is: a man who actually returned from the diaspora, built something in his father’s village, and you attack him like rabid dogs.

And enough with the irony that “reviews are being investigated”.

Business killers are being investigated.

And if justice forgives them, every person they attacked will still treat them as killers.

So they should hope justice acts quickly and gives them some security for the future.

Not for the “new Albania” they claim to want.

This is the Albania of 1945, but without even the rules.

We have seen that Albania once before. No one who suffered under it misses it. Except those who were at the top.

Originally published in Albanian as: Ruajuni nga ata që nuk ju çojnë në gjykatë për terrorizëm!