Human Rights in Albania

Robin Good writes:

After being abducted while holidaying in Macedonia, El-Masri was beaten, shackled, blindfolded, drugged and put on a plane to Afghanistan, where civil rights can be effectively ignored, and the torture of innocent ’suspects’ falls within the rights of interrogators. Here he was told that he could be killed, detained indefinitely or made to disappear from the face of the earth.

Months later, he was finally released, as Wikipedia notes:

”In April 2004, CIA Director George Tenet learned that El-Masri was being wrongfully detained. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice learned of his detention shortly thereafter in early May and ordered his release.

El-Masri was released on May 28 following a second order from Dr. Rice. American authorities met with him and agreed to release him if he agreed never to tell the story of his ordeal to anyone. They flew him out of Afghanistan and released him at night on a desolate road in Albania, without apology, or funds to return home. At the time he believed his release was a ruse, and he would be executed.”

Thus an innocent man lost months of his life, suffering brutal torture, detainment and daily fear for his life in the name of the ‘war on terror’. But he was not alone.

Albania Not in EU

Neretva River writes:

Reuters is reporting that the European Commission is set to recommend that EU accession processes underway with states in the Western Balkans not be advanced in the near future, which effectively will end the prospect of near term EU accession for the remaining non-EU former Yugoslav states and Albania. Although the freeze in EU enlargement contradicts statements made by Barroso to Croatian PM Sanader, Reuters has quoted an EU official as stating there will be a de facto pause in enlargement for five to six years, meaning Croatian accession at the earliest could occur in 2011-12. However, this five to six year framework is only the result of the fact that accession negotiations have already been opened with Croatia making Croatian accession more difficult to block than the accession of other states in the Western Balkans.

Women in Albania

Words of Power writes:

A study ‘Stereotyping: Representation of Women in Print Media in South-East Europe’ has studied the portrayal of women in Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia and Serbia. The study was carried out by the MediaCentre in Bosnian capital Sarajevo….Analysts studied leading publications from the region of former Yugoslavia for almost a year, and concluded that “the public sphere remains the domain of men, as politics and other ’serious’ matters remain reserved for men, while women are assigned roles in the private sphere and entertainment.”
“In 80 percent of the text, it is men who are represented in all the issues the dailies tackled,” said co-author Ivana Kronja at a presentation of the study in Belgrade last week. “Women are almost invisible; they appear when one goes to the entertainment, fashion or TV section.”

Albanian Dictator

Uncorrelated writes:

Many twentieth century dictators never answer for their crimes:

India’s independence leader Mohandas K. Gandhi said dictators “can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall.” That hasn’t always proven true. Russia’s Josef Stalin, North Korea’s Kim Il-Sung, China’s Mao Zedong, Spain’s Francisco Franco, Albania’s Enver Hoxha and Syria’s Hafez Assad all died in power. Augusto Pinochet of Chile arranged a comfortable retirement before handing over power. The global record of bringing tyrants to justice has been mixed.

Of the two executed dictators noted in the article, Nicolae Ceausescu and Samuel Doe, neither received public trials like Saddam.

Refugees in Albania

Firedoglake writes:

Every day, I pick up the newspaper and feel like we have been thrown into some Kafkaesque nightmare. Today is no different. This is being done in the name of the United States. In all of our names.

To make matters worse, those Chinese Uighyars, who had already been deemed to have been picked up erroneously and innocent of charges? Seventeen of the 22 are still being held (with five finally having been sent to Albania in May as political refugees), and according to the NYTimes, forced back through yet another hearing procedure…which looks an awful lot like CYA to me, and not at all like justice. Appalling.

Albanian Books

100 Books writes:

Below are the books that I’ve read and am counting towards my 100 books. There will be some books you’ll read about on my blog that won’t appear in the list – either because I’ve already read an author from that country but couldn’t resist another, or because they aren’t relevant to the 100 countries challenge. This list will be updated as I finish books.

1. In Lucia’s Eyes, by Arthur Japin (Holland)
2. Les Liaisons Culinaires, by Andreas Staïkos (Greece)
3. Spring Flowers, Spring Frost, by Ismail Kadare (Albania)

In Albania

Miatan writes about Albania:

Went to Albania for the first time and fed on nothing but salad, cheese and tough meat. The whole lot of us got shouted at for 3 weeks and if not for the company of the girls, i would have bought my first flight out.

Got hijacked for the first time, (hopefully the last) and on hindsight, could have been killed if the Greek fighter jets escorting us from Albania to Italy, over the Greece airspace, had shot us down since they were already given permission to take out the plane should anything happen.

Albanian Culture

Republican Riot writes:

For nearly eight years, I’ve been trying to make heads or tails out of what Bill Clinton could have meant when he said we were “defending our way of life” by bombing the Westernized, Christian Serbs on behalf of tribalistic, blood-code-following, clan-oriented, sans-rule-of-law Kosovo Albanians.

I think I’ll give that vegetarian thing another shot. But in the meantime, note that aside from the Balkan states that Muslims are taking over, there are zero European countries named. Indicating movement in a direction in which North America has more in common with Albania, Uganda, Afghanistan, Sudan, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Cambodia, Chechnia, Somalia, Pakistan, Lebanon, Indonesia, Iraq, “Palestine” and “Kosova.” Note the Islamic/Clintonite spelling used for that last one. Also note that Kashmir, “Palestine” and “Kosova” are “countries.” So Kosovo’s status is a foregone conclusion, the Muslims knowing that we and the UN will hand it over.

Adventure Travel Destinations

Up and coming adventure travel destinations:

Albania, Zimbabwe, with a little Korea and Zanzibar in between.

Unpaid Parking Tickets

Mental Floss writes:

Digging through public records dating back 10 years and more than $18 million in unpaid fines, Fisman ranked 146 countries by order of nonpayment. The worst offenders, he reckoned, might also have the “dirtiest” governments. Whether that’s the case is, of course, a matter of speculation and opinion. But the results certainly are interesting:
the worst offender was Kuwait, which averaged 246 unpaid tickets per year, per diplomat. Other baddies included Egypt, Chad, Sudan, Bulgaria, Mozambique, Albania, Angola and Senegal.