GOVERNMENT MISUSE OF STATE ADVERTISING

State advertising is critical to the financial survival of many Albanian dailies, especially those that are not affiliated with, and subsidized by, a political party.¹⁵⁹ For reasons related to the structure of the Albanian media industry and the general development of the Albanian economy, state advertising accounts for a disproportionately large share of the total advertising space sold by the Albanian press. A study of advertising trends in five major dailies, conducted by a journalists' association in September 2001, found that the five newspapers sold 42 percent of their total advertising space to state agencies and corporations.¹⁶⁰ For some of the papers, such as Gazeta Shqiptare with the second biggest circulation, state advertising accounted for more than 50 percent of the total.¹⁶¹ In other words, those newspapers sold more advertising space to the government than to the private sector. Such a trend was confirmed by a more comprehensive statistical study, carried out by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe's (OSCE) mission in Albania, which monitored the make-up of advertising in eleven daily newspapers over a two-week period.¹⁶² The OSCE study found that an average 45.4 percent of all advertising space sold by the dailies was state advertising. The ratio was higher than 50 percent for one party daily and two unaffiliated dailies, and above 70 percent for the Socialist Party newspaper.¹⁶³

Such significant financial leverage over the press can be easily abused by the government in the absence of mechanisms that can effectively ensure the fair and non-discriminatory allocation of state advertising. Unfortunately, such mechanisms either do not exist or are inadequate in Albania. As a result, distribution of state advertising is often manipulated for political purposes and, in the worst cases, for outright financial blackmail. A dozen editors-in-chief and media managers from both opposition and unaffiliated media outlets told Human Rights Watch, in separate interviews, that the Albanian government routinely uses advertising to pressure the critical press or interfere with their editorial freedom. All of them had been, at one point or another, subject to such pressures and interferences. Many of them viewed the excessive dependence of the Albanian media on government money, and the ways such dependence is abused by government officials at various levels, as among the biggest threats to press freedom in Albania.

The Legal Framework-and Its Pitfalls
The purchasing of advertising space by government agencies and state-controlled corporations is public spending. It is therefore governed, as a rule, by Albania's laws and regulations on public procurement. These regulations require that a full-fledged public bid (known as an "open tender") be organized for all public advertising purchases of more than one million lekë (about $7,000); and a "limited tender" for all purchases smaller than that amount.¹⁶⁴ Offers made by the bidding service providers must be evaluated in accordance with criteria and specifications set forth in advance by the public agency involved. Required specifications other than the price of the service must be "as objective and quantifiable as possible;" the weight to be given to each element of the offer and the method of evaluation of the offers must also be known before the bidding. The price of the service must account for at least 80 percentage points in all cases.¹⁶⁵ In the overwhelming majority of cases, public agencies use the two criteria of price and circulation to evaluate the advertising offers of bidding newspapers.¹⁶⁶

One of the largest categories of state advertising in the daily press includes public invitations to bid (for goods and services generally) and other legally required public announcements. The Public Procurement Law, which governs all public spending, requires that open tender invitations must be advertised in "at least two national newspapers with a large circulation."¹⁶⁷ The law does not define, though, what constitutes "large circulation." While the aim of the provision is to limit the circle of eligible newspapers, its vagueness renders it almost useless. Similarly, the Law on Expropriations requires that notices of public takings be published "in one newspaper with nationwide distribution and one local newspaper, for one week."¹⁶⁸ If no local newspaper exists in the locality where the expropriation will take place, some agencies (such as the Ministry of Transportation) opt for publication in two national newspapers.¹⁶⁹ But again, the law provides no specific guidance for determining the eligible newspapers. Such loopholes in the legal framework make it easier for government officials in charge of public advertising to abuse their discretion for either political or personal reasons.

An exception to the general lack of clarity in this area is the civil service law, which provides that advertisements of job vacancies in the central and local administration must be "published in the two newspapers with the widest circulation."¹⁷⁰ But even faced with such an unambiguous provision, the Department of Public Administration and the other agencies responsible for the publication of vacancy advertisements do not always comply.

In many cases the legal requirements are completely bypassed or ignored. A particularly creative way of avoiding an open tender, for example, is the artificial chopping up of advertising contracts into amounts smaller than one million lekë. While many state-controlled corporations and government agencies spend tens of thousands of dollars every year for advertising purposes, very few of them allocate advertising contracts through open, competitive bids.¹⁷¹

The great majority of state advertising is allocated through limited tenders. In such cases procurement regulations require that three or more advertising providers be invited to bid; the participating providers must be selected "in a non-discriminatory fashion and the number of invited bidders must, whenever possible, be sufficient to ensure effective competition." The participants may be selected out of a list of interested bidders held by the procuring agency, which must update the list every six months. The agency is required to "accept offers from [those on the list] who request to participate in the limited tender."¹⁷² Such lists are often used, however, to handpick the providers without competition, and without even notifying the other list members.¹⁷³

This is, for instance, how the Ministry of Transportation selected the newspapers that carried in October and November 2001 a large amount of expropriation notices related to highway construction.¹⁷⁴ Ministry officials told Human Rights Watch that the selection was made by the ministry spokesperson in conjunction with an ad hoc expropriation commission. The ministry justified the non-competitive "process" by reference to an executive regulation that mandates the expropriation commission to "arrange for the publication" of the expropriation notice.¹⁷⁵ Nothing in the regulation suggests, however, that the commission should make the actual selection of the advertising providers or, even less so, that such selection should be non-competitive. A number of newspapers complained to Human Rights Watch that the Ministry of Public Works had handpicked newspapers in a similar fashion for the publication of another large amount of expropriation notices.¹⁷⁶ In addition, Human Rights Watch observed that identical advertisements of that ministry took twice as much space-and therefore cost the ministry twice as much-in some newspapers, such as the largely pro-government Korrieri, than in others.¹⁷⁷

An Egregious Case Of Official Abuse-the National Privatization Agency
The following case illustrates how even the most competitive and transparent bidding procedure, the open tender, can be abused in Albania by government officials in charge of advertisement publications. In April 2001, the National Privatization Agency (NPA), one of the largest government advertisers, invited daily newspapers to bid for the allocation of ten million lekë (ca. $70,000) earmarked for the publication of privatization advertisements over a one-year period. The amount was to be distributed to the three best bidders. A publications commission appointed by the NPA director decided that RD, Tema and Gazeta Shqiptare made the winning offers. Shortly afterwards, however, the NPA director notified the three winners that the tender results had been cancelled, without providing any explanation.¹⁷⁸ Tema claimed that the only motive of the cancellation was the government's political hostility toward that newspaper. NPA staff maintained that the results had been cancelled following the verification of the circulation numbers presented by the winning newspapers, which were found to be inflated-but they gave no convincing reasons as to why, following the cancellation, the winners had not been selected in accordance with the accurate circulation numbers.¹⁷⁹

Six months later the NPA published a new invitation to bid for the same services. On October 22, a new publications commission, headed by NPA lawyer Bledar Doracaj, opened the bidders' sealed offers in the presence of staff from the four participating dailies. Gazeta Shqiptare, ZP, and RD offered to carry NPA ads at a price of 13 lekë/cm², while Koha Jonë offered its services at 20 lekë/cm². According to their respective circulation numbers and the formula for the evaluation of the offers, Gazeta, ZP and RD appeared to be the clear winners.¹⁸⁰ On October 24, however, Doracaj summoned representatives of the four dailies and informed them that the commission had disqualified Gazeta's bid; as a result, the winners were the three remaining bidders. Doracaj refused to provide any reasons for Gazeta's disqualification.¹⁸¹ On October 29, the NPA director informed Gazeta that the commission had disqualified its offer "for failure to complete the [bid] documentation pursuant to the relevant requirements"-without more. According to information Gazeta received informally from NPA staff, the fatal failure had in fact been a trivial omission: it had omitted the phrase "per issue" after the circulation figure in one of the application forms.

Gazeta staff suggested that its bogus disqualification by the NPA commission might have been related to its recent criticism of an influential cabinet member-or to corruption within the NPA.¹⁸² Human Rights Watch filed with the NPA a formal request for access to the tender documentation under the Albanian freedom of information law.¹⁸³ To date the NPA has provided only its final decision, including only a summary reference to Gazeta's disqualification.¹⁸⁴

Discriminatory and Politically Motivated Allocation of State Advertising
A good way to assess the fairness of state advertising allocation is by comparing the amount of such advertising that goes to party-affiliated newspapers. The three party-affiliated dailies in Albania, ZP, RD and Republika, have about the same circulation (respectively 5,167, 5,333 and 5,000 copies per issue) and charge the same standard advertising fee (20 lekë/cm²). They also compete on the same national market. Given that price and circulation are, under Albanian law, the two key factors that must be considered in granting advertising contracts, it should be expected that the three party dailies receive roughly the same amount of state advertising.

That is not the case. A number of recent studies conducted by different organizations between January and November 2001 reveal that ZP, organ of the governing Socialist Party, consistently receives a much greater slice of the state advertising pie than the opposition's RD and Republika. Thus, according to a month-long survey carried out by a Tirana-based sociological center, in January 2001, ZP received twice as much state advertising as RD and 2.3 times more than Republika.¹⁸⁵ The OSCE analysis referred to above found that, over a two-week period in November 2001, ZP received a daily average of 3.5 pages of state advertising, while the RD and Republika received 2.1 and 1.75 pages, respectively. In contrast, RD carried 30 percent more private-sector advertising than ZP during the same period. Human Rights Watch research found that in October and November 2001 ZP benefited from generous advertising purchases by the Albanian Telecom, KESH, the Ministry of Public Works, and the Customs Service, among others; this was not the case with RD and Republika.

The clearest case of misuse of state advertising for political reasons in the recent past involves Shekulli, Albania's best-selling daily. Shekulli staff told Human Rights Watch that the newspaper faced a drastic decrease in the amount of allocated state advertising as a result of changes in its editorial policy. They asserted that the decrease was in retaliation for Shekulli's lack of support for Prime Minister Ilir Meta's reappointment in September 2001 and its increasingly critical stand toward the second Meta cabinet thereafter.¹⁸⁶ According to Shekulli, government officials at many government agencies did not even try to hide their motives and repeatedly threatened to withdraw all state advertising if Shekulli continued to pursue its new editorial orientation. Government officials interviewed by Human Rights Watch, including the government spokesman Thoma Gëllçi, denied that the government was systematically discriminating against Shekulli.¹⁸⁷

Statistics suggest the contrary, however. It is undisputed that Shekulli received a significant amount of state advertising before the autumn of 2001. In January 2001, Shekulli received more state advertising that any other Albanian daily: about 24 percent of the total advertising space bought by the government in the daily newspaper market.¹⁸⁸ The picture was similar in September 2001, when Shekulli's editorial orientation started to change. In the period September 21-28, Shekulli carried a total of 2.34 square meters of state advertising, second only to Gazeta Shqiptare with 2.55 square meters.¹⁸⁹ Things had changed dramatically by mid-November 2001, when the OSCE survey found that Shekulli was receiving an average of only 1.8 pages of state advertising per issue. During the same period the Socialist Party's ZP, whose circulation is less than one-fourth of Shekulli's, received almost twice as much state advertising (an average of 3.5 pages per issue). Shekulli lagged also far behind the other top circulation dailies: Gazeta Shqiptare and Korrieri with four pages of state advertising per issue each, and Koha Jonë with 4.1 pages per issue.¹⁹⁰ Even the RD did better than Shekulli, with 2.1 pages per issue. Within a few months Shekulli's market share of state advertising fell to 6.7 percent.¹⁹¹ A Human Rights Watch survey of all major newspapers revealed that, in November 2001, the "pariah" newspaper was boycotted by almost all major government advertisers, including the Ministries of Transportation and Public Works, the Department of Public Administration, the Albanian Telecom, KESH and the Postal Service.

The degree and circumstances of Shekulli's lost state advertising leave very little doubt that its boycott by the government advertisers-many of which cut longstanding business relationships with the newspaper within a very short time-was systematic and coordinated. In spite of their denials, none of the government officials interviewed by Human Rights Watch provided any convincing justification for Shekulli's precipitous loss of favor with their respective agencies or government advertisers generally.¹⁹² Shekulli's claims that the boycott was politically motivated appear even more justified if one considers that, under Albanian law, large categories of state advertising must be published in one or more "large circulation" or "top circulation" newspapers. If such laws had been applied fairly by government advertisers, Shekulli, which is Albania's top circulation daily by a large margin, would have received in November 2001 far more state advertising than it actually did.

While the government's abuse of its financial leverage was most clear in Shekulli's case, that is by no means an isolated occurrence. Following the publication of a critical article in Gazeta Shqiptare about the quality of road construction, for example, a director in the Ministry of Transportation ordered the cancellation of any future deals with the newspaper and transferred advertising to another daily. He also froze the payment of eight months' worth of advertising fees the ministry owed Gazeta Shqiptare.¹⁹³ In a similar case, Albanian Telecom terminated without cause and without explanation an advertising contract with Republika, which was intended to cover the entire year 2000. The contract was terminated in October 2000 after Republika had published a series of articles critical of the Ministry of Economy and Privatization, which oversees Telecom.¹⁹⁴ Newspaper editors interviewed by Human Rights Watch provided many other specific examples of financial retaliation by officials at all levels of government, although few of them were willing to speak publicly about issues that would most likely trigger another wave of reprisal.

State Advertising as Subsidies to the Media-and the Korrieri Affair
In June 2000, the Albanian Council of Ministers (CoM) authorized the allocation of sixty million lekë (about $430,000) to nine dailies and three weekly magazines for the publication of "government propaganda materials."¹⁹⁵ The "propaganda materials" were public awareness advertisements on issues such as AIDS or environmental protection, which the involved newspapers agreed to carry a given number of times during a one-year period. According to the government, the lump sum was allocated to the twelve periodicals in proportion to their respective circulation numbers provided by the printing houses.¹⁹⁶ The opposition claimed that the allocation was biased in favor of the "pro-government" press. Such claims were justified to some extent. Most notable was the exclusion of the right-wing Tema, the only major political weekly that was not included in the project. The opposition press also protested the timing of the decision, denouncing it as an attempt to buy the mainstream press before the municipal elections scheduled for October 2000.

In spite of its public education purposes, the government purchase of $430,000 worth of advertising space was essentially an extensive subsidy for the Albanian press industry. Such subsidies are not necessarily inimical to a free and independent press. The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, for example, has recognized that public subsidies may be necessary to ensure the financial viability of the print and broadcast media, and to enhance media pluralism and diversity. But aware of the potential threats to media freedoms associated with such subsidies, the Committee of Ministers emphasized that any such aid should be "granted on the basis of objective and non-partisan criteria, within the framework of transparent procedures and subject to independent control."¹⁹⁷ The need for such an independent control mechanism is critical in Albania where the press lacks a tradition of independence and the government holds a potentially threatening position in the advertising market.

Such dangers were illustrated in the October 2001 Albanian Government allocation of ten million lekë to Korrieri, through a decision similar to that of June 2000. Six million lekë were earmarked for the publication of "government propaganda materials" and four million for a newspaper supplement about "Albania's most distinguished achievements" to be published on the occasion of Albania's Independence Day (November 28).¹⁹⁸ The decision triggered unanimous protests by the rest of the press. In response, Korrieri's publisher, Aleksandër Frangaj, declared that the government subsidies to his newspaper were only fair because Korrieri, which was established in March 2001, had not benefited from the first round of aid.¹⁹⁹ This does not explain, however, why this second round of aid did not include the other newly-established Dita as well as, for the second time, Tema, which had become a daily in the interim. The reason may have been that, unlike Korrieri, Dita and Tema were increasingly critical of the Meta government.

The government spokesman told Human Rights Watch that the money allocated to Korrieri was not a subsidy, but compensation for contractual services. He conceded, however, that the supplement on "Albania's achievements" would be prepared by an American newspaper, and that Korrieri would only be responsible for printing and distributing it as a separate brochure. He told Human Rights Watch that Korrieri was chosen as the owner of the only printing establishment in Albania with the technology required to print a high-quality, color publication. There are, however, other printers in Albania that can ensure the same printing quality as "Print 2000," where Korrieri is printed.²⁰⁰ In addition, the use of an entirely non-competitive procedure by the Albanian government to assign the contract to Korrieri (the so-called direct procurement procedure) makes the transaction even more suspicious. Under public procurement laws, the Council of Ministers can authorize purchasing of competitive services through direct procurement only in "special cases of emergency or force majeure."²⁰¹ As many critics of the affair pointed out in the Albanian media, it is difficult to see how a publication tied to the foreseeable Independence Day can qualify as either. Last, but not least, the government failed to provide any justification for the larger part of the sum allocated to Korrieri for the publication of "government propaganda materials."

In sum, there are strong reasons to conclude that the Korrieri transaction was a governmental favor to a newspaper that was generally supportive of the Meta government.

Effects of Abusive Allocation of State Advertising
Albanian media professionals see their excessive dependence on state advertising revenues, and the governmental abuse of such financial leverage, as a very significant threat to their freedom and independence. The campaign against Shekulli, Albania's biggest daily, is an indicator of how severe such financial pressures can be and how systematically and aggressively they can be pursued. Even in the absence of a coordinated campaign, media outlets frequently fall prey to retaliation by government officials or institutions irritated by public exposure of their performance or integrity.

Financial pressures can have chilling effects on a free press as profound as those brought about by physical assaults or prison sentences. This is clearly the case in post-communist Albania's fiercely competitive media market, with its thirteen news dailies catering to a small nation of three million. Although more subtle than physical or legal intimidation, financial blackmail is more pervasive and equally effective. It forces newspaper publishers to rein in their editorial staff and, by many insider accounts, is a major contributor to self-censorship or lost independence among Albanian press professionals. Discriminatory government subsidies, be they through advertising or other creative channels, distort competition in the press market by giving an unfair edge to the government's favorite outlets.

Advertising money is not the only mechanism abused by the government to inflict financial headaches on the critical media. Almost all media close to the opposition complain that government officials (such as tax or custom or safety inspectors) harass private businesses that advertise in their newspapers or TV stations, pressuring them to stop "financing" the opposition media. As a result, many businesses sympathetic to opposition-affiliated media prefer to support them through private donations, rather than advertising in their pages.

159 State advertising includes advertisements or public announcements, such as public procurement offers, paid by national or local government agencies. As used in this report, it also includes commercial advertising by state-owned or state-controlled corporations, such as Albanian Telecom, the Albanian Electrical Energy Corporation (KESH), or the Albanian Postal Service, which are subject to public procurement laws and regulations.

160 Albanian Free Media Forum, Analysis of Advertising Space in the Albanian Daily Press, September 21-28, 2001 (on file with Human Rights Watch).

161 The circulation numbers used in this report are taken from AMI, Monitoring Albanian Media, note 1 above, at p. 8. For the full list of circulation numbers for each daily, see Appendix A.

162 OSCE Presence in Albania, Monitoring of State and Private Advertising in Albanian Daily Newspapers, November 5-18, 2001 (on file with Human Rights Watch).

163 State advertising made up 51 percent of all advertising space at Albania and Korrieri, 53 percent at RD, and 72 percent at the Socialist Party's Zëri i Popullit (ZP). Korrieri is among the four top-circulation dailies.

164 Law on Public Procurement (no. 7971, dated July 26, 1995), as implemented by the Council of Ministers' Decision no. 335, of June 23, 2000, secs. 1-2. A limited tender is a procedure whereby a limited number of bidders (no less than three) are invited to make offers. Law 7971, sec. 36.

165 Council of Ministers' Regulation on Public Procurement (no. 1 of January 1, 1996), section III(b).3.

166 One of the greatest technical obstacles to the fair application of state advertising laws in Albania is the lack of reliable circulation data. Almost all newspapers tend to inflate their circulation numbers when they bid for advertising contracts. Government agencies usually rely on numbers provided by printing houses. Such numbers reflect, however, the amount of copies printed by any given newspaper, not the number of copies that are actually sold at the end of the day. Anecdotal evidence suggests that many newspapers routinely print more copies than they can actually sell.

167 Law 7971, as amended, sec. 25.

168 Law on Public Interest Expropriations (no. 8561 of December 25, 1999), sec. 15.1.

169 Human Rights Watch interview with Miranda Shuli, Director of Infrastructure, Ministry of Transportation, Tirana, November 12, 2001.

170 Law on the Status of Civil Servants (no. 8549, of November 11, 1999), secs. 13.3 and 15.3.

171 Human Rights Watch interviews, among others, with Gazeta Shqiptare, Koha Jonë, RD, Republika, Shekulli and Tema managers, Tirana, November 2001.

172 Law 7971, as amended, sec. 36.

173 Human Rights Watch interviews, note 171 above.

174 Human Rights Watch interview with Reiz Mulita, Spokesperson, Ministry of Transportation, Tirana, November 7, 2001. Mulita declined to comment on the total cost of the advertising campaign.

175 Council of Ministers' Decision (no. 126, dated March 23, 2000) on the Composition and Operational Procedures of the Special Commission on Expropriations, sec. 3.

176 The publications, which also ran in October and November 2001, were related to the construction of public cemeteries and other projects. Human Rights Watch was unable to discuss the allegations with Argjir Kristulla, head of the expropriation commission at the Ministry of Public Works. Kristulla cancelled two appointments with Human Rights Watch and remained unavailable thereafter.

177 See, for example, the November 4 and 6, 2001 editions of Korrieri.

178 Human Rights Watch interviews with Tema, RD, and Gazeta Shqiptare managers, Tirana, November 2001.

179 Human Rights Watch interview with Mirela Meko, head of the NPA Department of Procedures, and Rahela Reçi, head of the NPA Department of Statistics, Tirana, November 12, 2001. Meko was the head of the tender commission, and Reçi was a member.

180 Gazeta declared an average circulation of 12,500 copies per issue, Koha Jonë 10,500 copies, ZP 7,000 copies, and RD 5,000 copies. The price element of the offer accounted for 80 percentage points-in other words, was four times more important than circulation numbers. Human Rights Watch interviews with Gazeta Shqiptare managers, Tirana, November 13, 2001.

181 According to the Public Procurement Law, a government agency can "disqualify" a bidder upon a finding that "the information provided [by the bidder] regarding its qualifications or the data relevant to the evaluation of its offer are inaccurate or incomplete." Law 7971, as amended, sec. 12.6.

182 Human Rights Watch interview with Adrian Angoni, Executive Director, Gazeta Shqiptare, Tirana, November 13, 2001.

183 Law 8503. See note 41 above, and accompanying text.

184 The NPA director Kozeta Fino denied Human Rights Watch's initial request, claiming that the requested documentation was confidential under Albanian law. Human Rights Watch replied, explaining why it disagreed with NPA's interpretation of the law. (For the text of the second letter to Kozeta Fino, see Appendix C.) Human Rights Watch also relayed the issue of the information request to the Albanian People's Advocate (ombudsperson), who is authorized by the Albanian freedom of information law to "oversee [its] implementation." The People's Advocate looked into the matter and concluded that NPA's refusal to give Human Rights Watch access to the requested documentation violated the law; he recommended to the NPA to release the information. Ermir Dobjani, People's Advocate, letter of January 17, 2002 (on file with Human Rights Watch). In response to the recommendation of the People's Advocate, the NPA provided Human Rights Watch with a copy of the final decision on the winning bids. The decision, however, stated only that Gazeta Shqiptare's bid was disqualified for being "not in conformity with the invitation to bid," without providing any further explanation.

185 See Vasfi Baruti, "The War of the Media: How the Albanian Press Informs Its Readers," Tema, February 11-12, 2001 (hereinafter "Eureka" survey). Dr. Baruti heads the "Eureka" Sociological Center, which carried out the statistical survey.

186 Human Rights Watch interviews with Shekulli's publisher, Koço Kokëdhima, and its editor-in-chief, Robert Rakipllari, Tirana, November 5, 2001.

187 Human Rights Watch interview with Thoma Gëllçi, spokesman of the Council of Ministers, Tirana, November 14, 2001. See also above, Human Rights Watch interviews with Reiz Mulita and Miranda Shuli.

188 See "Eureka" survey, note 185 above.

189 Free Media Forum study, note 160 above. During the same period Korrieri carried a total of 2.32 square meters and Albania 2.21 square meters of state advertising.

190 The top four dailies (Shekulli, Gazeta Shqiptare, Korrieri and Koha Jonë) charge the same standard advertising fee of 30.3 lekë/cm².

191 A small part of the lost market share, compared to January 2001, should be attributed to the establishment of two new dailies, Korrieri and Dita. Without counting the latter newspapers' market shares in November, Shekulli's share among the other nine dailies was 8.2 percent, about one-third of its January 2001 share.

192 See Human Rights Watch interviews, note 187 above.

193 Human Rights Watch interview with Artur Sokoli, media manager, Gazeta Shqiptare, Tirana, November 13, 2001.

194 Human Rights Watch interview with Neritan Alibali, note 36 above.

195 Council of Ministers' Decision (no. 317) of June 23, 2000. Koha Jonë and Shekulli were given ten million lekë each, Gazeta Shqiptare and Albania seven million each, ZP and RD five million each, Republika, Ekonomia, and the weekly Intervista two million each, Gazeta 55 one million, and two weekly magazines, Klan and Spektër, six and three million, respectively.

196 Human Rights Watch interview with Thoma Gëllçi, note 187 above.

197 Recommendation No. R (99) 1, Committee of Ministers, Council of Europe, "Measures to Promote Media Pluralism" (Adopted by the Committee of Ministers on January 19, 1999).

198 Council of Ministers' Decision (no. 569) of October 24, 2001.

199 "Publisher Lesi: Meta's Fatal Mistake," Dita, November 6, 2001. The article included comments by six newspaper editors.

200 Human Rights Watch interviews with Albanian media managers, Tirana, November 2001.

201 Law 7971, as amended, secs. 17.3 and 19.