Adriatic Reagon Kelmendi: It happened to me even in Milosevic's time that power tried to shut down a media

Former director of Kosovo's Klan Adriatic Kelmendi has reacted after MINT's decision to suspend Klan Kosovo's permit.

Kelmendi has said that this decision is an attempt to intimidate, but that they will not succeed.

Kelmendi in his reaction has stressed that he has faced a media closure attempt before, and this has been in 1999 in Milosevic's time.

Kelmendi's full Facebook response:

We're not leaving them! They won't make it!

Tow plants short: There is nothing disturbing about the Kosovo Clan operation. Klan Kosova is a medium of Kosovo, with over 200 employees of the Republic of Kosovo, with about 100,000 hours of news broadcasts and other programmes promoting and engaging for the good of Kosovo.

Klan Kosovo's work is public. On the screen, on the radio, on the portal, on the social network.

And, of course, like any free and democratic media, Klan Kosova also has critical access to different phenomena in the state and society, regardless of who is in power and who in opposition.

Therefore, Klan Kosova today is the most widely followed medium in the Republic.

What does that mean?

Trying to scare.

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

Albanians have also shed blood to gain freedom. Generations of journalists have fought at all costs both in the time of Milosevich and in the war, both UNMIK and all governments to maintain freedom and independence. Free speech, free opinion.

Powers can always find a pretext to silence a journalist, a medium. Today it is said there was a passport, a wrong question tomorrow at a news conference, after tomorrow the color of a television video.

A power which aims to silence the media -- free speech -- captures institutions to bring the mission to the end. First with a speculating portal led by partisan militants, then in media regulatory bodies with people installed there.

But we thought we were living in democracy.

That closing the media mouth occurs only in countries like Russia and Belarus, Serbia and North Korea, not in our Kosovo, not in whose people no one has ever been able to kill the ideal for free living.

I'm not even gonna kill anyone, ever.

It's happened again during my work as a journalist so that a power can make an effort to shut down a media. It was 1999. But power was Milosevic's. Even that world had found a pretext. Two published writings, which were actually translations by Beta news agency. With these, Miloshevqi took the daily command “to trial with the aim of closing. Then, on March 24, his forces entered the press, killed the guard, and destroyed everything. Milosevic temporarily closed the media, but after weeks we continued working in Tetovo and here we are today, all journalists, giving the best profession, but also making Kosovo the best media in the region.

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

From yesterday, this achievement of generations is under the most serious threat ever. In Kosovo we deemed him free.

But Kosovo journalists have given the exam. Not once. Many times.

Sadly, Kosovo has been given the biggest mark, that it has powers intended to shut down the media. As in Russia and Belarus, as in Serbia and North Korea.

We're not leaving them! It won't work.