It is not uncommon for Albanian media and journalists to try to disrupt the peace of the Ethnic Greek Minority in the southern part of the country, with provocative reports aimed at encouraging Albanian nationalism for a few minutes of publicity and high ratings.
The latest incident was a report shown on the show “Ora Verore” (“Summer Time”), of the Albanian television station “Ora”.
The TV crew was in the minority village of Dervitsani in Northern Epirus, with the journalist “wondering” in public and asking for explanations, “why in a village in Albania do they speak Greek or have Greek road signs?”.
With a lot of irony, the journalist asks a Greek “why he speaks Greek”, just to get the answer that they have always been speaking Greek in his home and the Greek language is taught in their school as well. Continuing in the same manner, the journalist asks another resident of Dervitsani if Greek is spoken in the village because of the…pension they receive from Greece. The answer that “Greek is the mother tongue of the region and that the region is recognized by Albania as a minority” does not seem to discourage the Albanian journalist, who continues the report, although many refuse to appear on television, a fact that the journalist does not seem to respect.
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This is not the first time that a television station in Albania has attempted to present as “news” the fact that Greek is spoken in the Greek minority villages of the Northern Epirus. A year ago, another journalist was provoking and mocking elderly residents, again in the village of Dervitsani, because they spoke Greek.
Commenting on the incident at protothema.gr a representative of the Greek minority in Albania, stressed that: “Although we are in 2021, many do not want to accept the existence of indigenous Greeks in the country, since they just do not want to understand the obvious”.
