Several recent incidents in which Albanians have filmed officials appearing to break the law and then made the footage public through social and mainstream media channels signal a new trend in crowd-sourced law enforcement in this country.
Common citizens, fed up with the arrogance and impunity that is often exerted by those vested with official power, are starting to increasingly resort to filming and gathering their own irrefutable proof to target negative behavior and then publicly pressuring authorities to investigate and punish.
The very public nature of such trend also has the added benefit of giving other officials time to think and correct their behavior in the future.
Two incidents this week have showed the strategy is working to at least convince authorities to start investigations and have led to some punishments for the perpetrators.
In one video this week, the vehicle carrying the defense minister was filmed by a dashboard camera repeatedly breaking traffic rules, including running a red light and making an illegal turn.
Such actions have been common for years among many vehicles carrying anyone with political power in Albania. Now, with a camera and social media, what was once individual anger can be turned into group action.
The minister’s driver in this case received a fine after the footage made headlines, and the interior minister urged people to keep providing videos of people breaking the law in such manner.
But a far more egregious incident took place in Kukes earlier in the week when police are seen on camera dragging in the dirt and punching a protest organizer inside a police van. Two officers were suspended, including one who in civilian clothes pulled out a loaded handgun and pointed it at protesters cursing and threatening them.
The protest was illegal, the police said, but the public outcry at the treatment of protesters and pressure from the country’s ombudsman and human rights organizations led to a suspension of two officers and an official investigation.
The beating and the use of a handgun to threaten protesters who were clearly not a threat to the officer would have been a footnote or gone unnoticed just a few years ago, but there were both mainstream media and amateur cameras in place to film and show police were not justified in their actions.
These were just two incidents this week. Previously, such amateur footage has also been used to shame drivers of expensive vehicles who feel they can mistreat traffic police who stop them and to shame citizens who have attacked police.
To be clear, the same technology that is used in a public place in accordance to the law, can also be used to violate it, as is the case in entering the people’s private lives without their consent or using the information to blackmail with the threat of public shame.
However, overall in the context of keeping those who believe can act with impunity and arrogance in check, the use of such technology can provide a needed cultural shift in Albania.
In a country where people, particularly those who are least powerful and most vulnerable, are treated with disrespect by people paid by the taxpayers to be of service, it is a good to know that there is finally an outlet that gives a voice to the voiceless, one click at a time.
