Prishtina, 7 February, 2024
The Prime Minister of the Republic of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, was invited tonight as a guest and key speaker at the event that marked the 25th anniversary of the founding of the KosovaPress news agency. Unable to be present, his speech was read on his behalf by the spokesperson of the Government of the Republic of Kosovo, Përparim Kryeziu.
Complete speech:
Rightfully so, a free and independent press is considered a central pillar of representative democracy. Not coincidentally, after the American Revolution, the founding fathers of the American republic put freedom of speech and the press first in the charter of basic rights and liberties of the citizen—the so-called “Bill of Rights.” Kant, one of the most prominent philosophers of the European Enlightenment, wrote that “the freedom of the pen is the only guarantee for the rights of the people.” Denying the people this right, he judged, means nothing less than denying them any right against the highest leader of the country.
Today we mark the 25th anniversary of the establishment of one of the most important news agencies in our country. KosovaPress shares the same anniversary with the liberation of our country. This news agency was founded on January 4, 1999, a very significant year in the recent history of Kosovo. Very soon after its establishment, this news agency would become the voice of the freedom-loving people of Kosovo and their struggle for liberation from the rule of Milosevic’s Serbia. In those circumstances that were not easy for our people, the journalists of KosovaPress made a very valuable contribution to highlighting the truth about Kosovo. The reports of this news agency quickly became the main reference for international news agencies, thus influencing the international public opinion to create a more accurate idea of the situation in Kosovo during that decisive year.
Information is one of the key components in any war, and especially in an armed war. An information that under normal conditions would be just news, in a state of war becomes a weapon in the hands of the one who has it and the one who disseminated it or kept it for themselves. During the war, one of the problems in the organization of the Kosovo Liberation Army was the great propaganda that Serbia made against the KLA inside and outside Kosovo. Conceived and executed by the organs and apparatus of the state of Serbia, this wild anti-Albanian propaganda had to be fought with the truth and the right, since the truth and the right were then as well as today on the side of Kosovo as an issue and its people as a subject of history.
Precisely in the battle for fair information, the news agency KosovaPress has been the main unit of our fair fight for the liberation of Kosovo from the invading Serbia. In 2016, the Institute of History published in four volumes the War Archive of the State Information Agency “KosovaPress”, which summarizes all the news of the KosovaPress agency, from the day it was founded on January 4, 1999, until the first days of liberation on June 17, 1999. If you pick up those four volumes totaling over 2,000 pages and read them, you can understand almost the entire chronology of the last six months of the war in Kosovo. So, it can be said that the KosovaPress agency was the most regular chronicler of that period.
Fortunately, in the Republic of Kosovo today, journalism is practiced under completely different conditions. Our country is among the countries with the liveliest and richest media scene in our region. Our results in the field of press freedom are also confirmed by prestigious international organizations. According to Reporters without Borders, Kosovo has improved its position in the World Press Freedom Index by 22 places. As the Prime Minister of the Republic of Kosovo, I am interested in the freedom of the press continuing to flourish even stronger. Besides being a guarantee of people’s rights, media freedom is also a guarantee for the possibility of continuous improvement of governance. Without the freedom of the press, the governments would not realize their mistakes, and consequently our country would be deprived of the possibility of continuous improvement and progress.
While we continue to jealously guard freedom of the press, we must also make efforts to combat the rather widespread phenomenon of mass and deliberate misinformation that is today threatening the quality of social debate throughout free societies. If even the world’s oldest democracies are not proving themselves invulnerable to this phenomenon, how much less can we be considered as a new democracy. In this regard, I think that the role of journalists and professional media is irreplaceable. They should set an example of courageous journalism committed to the truth, despite the interests of the powerful who seek to silence it, be it government officials or big businesses that offer money in exchange for silence. If at the time of the American and French revolutions the biggest threat to the free press came from the monarchist state and the church, today in free and democratic societies it seems that the biggest threat comes from the commercialization of the media. The great concentration of economic power in a few hands is as serious a threat to the free press as the absolute power of the alliance between the royal throne and the church altar once was.
I want to use this opportunity as the Prime Minister of the Republic of Kosovo to reiterate my commitment and that of the Government that I lead to the freedom of the press. As a social democratic politician who has spent most of his life as a social and political activist, I understand well the importance of freedom of expression and press for social progress. Therefore, I invite you to take a close look at all my actions and those of the government I lead, always insisting on fair democratic accountability. As a social democratic politician and activist, always count me as an ally in the battle for a free and independent press in our country.
Hearty congratulations on the 25th anniversary!
Thank you.
Last modified: February 8, 2024