BULQIZE, Feb. 3 – The story that three Chinese held up at gunpoint on a rural road in northwestern Albania used their marital arts skills to overpower three would-be armed robbers was made up, according to a local journalist in this small mining town.
But the robbery did happen and the authors, aged 21 and 23, have been arrested, the local correspondent that was not involved in the writing of the original fake story, Hysen Likdisha, has told Tirana Times.
He added that it is likely the interview of the News24 TV with the Chinese workers was also staged. “They weren’t even the Chinese workers who were robbed,” Likdisha said.
Unnamed Chinese men told News 24 TV were held at gunpoint on a mountain road Sunday. Speaking in their native tongue so their attackers wouldn’t understand them, the Chinese men decided to fight back. They overpowered the gunmen, called the police and had them arrested.
“They were masked and armed and stopped us, putting the gun below the chin of our friend. They wanted our mobile phones, money and the sacks with our goods,” one of the Chinese men told News24.
Or so the story went. But it was good enough to dupe the Reuters international news agency into doing a story that quickly became one of the most popular stories about Albania this month.
“The men demonstration of his techniques for the camera included powerful hand blows and frontal and back kicks,” the Reuters story noted.
There are many Chinese workers here as contractors for a copper mine in Bulqiza, a small rural mining town and one of Albania’s poorest areas.
Bujar Karoshi, the editor of Dibra Country’s Rruga e Arbrit newspaper, who first alerted Tirana Times of the fact the story was fake, said it shows the deterioration of journalism in Albania’s rural areas, where often there are no local correspondents and news is often covered by reporters based in Tirana or other cities.
“Making up stories is unfortunately not isolated to this case, and is a trend that deeply hurts Albanian journalism,” he said.
