Journalist Fatos Lubonja’s car has been vandalised with a stone after he had parked it outside of his apartment in Tirana.
Reporters without Borders condemned the attack and called on Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama to stop his anti-media rhetoric, which according to the RSF gives people a “blank check to attack journalists”.
#Albania @RSF_inter condemns the repeated attacks on the personal car of Albanian media analyst Fatos Lubonja, known as a critical voice of the government and calls on the PM @ediramaal to stop his anti-Media rhetoric that gives the population a blank check to attack journalists pic.twitter.com/kXBbqtEggY
— RSF in English (@RSF_en) January 7, 2020
It is not known when exactly the incident took place but Lubonja filed a criminal report with the police on 2 January.
Lubonja declared that the attack was deliberate and linked to his work.
“I came back from Italy at 1pm for dinner and found my car damaged badly behind broken windows, which seemed deliberate as there was no theft. It was an act of vandalism, an act of hatred by someone. “
This is the second time Lubonja’s car has been vandalised in the last few months.
In July 2019,Lubonja found the front windshield of his car smashed again with a large stone. Shortly after the news was made public, police said they arrested the perpetrator of the incident, and they considered an attack on critical journalists.
Speaking about the July event, Mr Lubonja said he believes that the attacker was influenced by statements by Prime Minister Rama, who at any moment “denigrates, insults and attacks journalists and media critical of him”.
