In this recording, you can listen to the opening speeches of former political prisoners Martin Çuni and Hava Shala, moderated and live translation by Blertë Ismajli
In 1984, Hava Shala got imprisoned at the age of 17 for her political activism. For four years she endured interrogation, torture, severe physical and psychological deprivation, but as she says continued to resist through songs while being imprisoned. She recalls: „The prison makes songs more courageous, more sensitive and more alive. I sang. I sang when I was not alone in the cell, and I sang even more when I was alone in the cell or during months I spent in solitary confinement in Mitrovica Prison“. She ends her speech with singing Moj e bukura more saying: „We sang to this time and I am here and Myrvete, my prison companion, I see other faces too, fellow prisoners and we are looking at the past from another perspective.“
Martin Çuni, former political prisoner, journalist and radio maker. Having worked for eight years at Radio Prishtina, he was imprisoned for his political activities and spent nine years in Yugoslav prisons. During his imprisonment in Prishtina, he helped his fellow prisoner and friend Muhamer Shabani escape on 14 August 1983. While Shabani managed to flee, Çuni remained behind, facing renewed torture and an additional prison sentence. During his eight years in isolation he continued to write letters to his wife Mrika and his children. His prison letters were later collected and published under the title Mrikë, jeta ime (Mrika, My Life), from which he read an excerpt during his speech at the festival opening.
Languages: English & Albanian
PRISON RADIO Festival
PRISON RADIO is an international, transdisciplinary sound and radio art project that rethinks both prison and radio as social, political and artistic structures. Broadcast and recorded in Prishtina from 10 to 13 September 2026, the festival featured a 72-hour radio programme, comprising approximately 30 hours of live broadcasts and 42 hours of pre-produced content. Taking the Former Prishtina Prison as a resonant site, the festival approaches the prison not only as a historical institution of confinement, but also as a metaphor for wider invisible architectures of limitation: social roles, gender norms, borders, political pressure, economic constraint, trauma, language, surveillance and silence. Through radio art, soundwalks, live broadcasts, performances, concerts, lectures, workshops, a community run, collective listening sessions and the exhibition Sound, Resisting, which extended across four prison blocks, the watchtower and the courtyards, PRISON RADIO transformed a former site of punishment into a temporary space of voice, resistance and public reflection. The festival draws on critical prison studies, the politics of listening, sound studies, the concept of the prison without walls and the carceral continuum. It understands radio as a dissident and participatory medium through which voices, art and sounds travel beyond walls, borders and dominant narratives.
Curation & programme: PRISON RADIO Collective (Alban Beqiraj, Blertë Ismajli, Alexander Vojvoda, Verena Walzl)
Organisation: STRALLI
Radio production: Lumpen Station (CH), commissioned by PRISON RADIO Festival
Live radio direction, technical production & post-production: Andrea Marioni, Lumpen Station
Partners: Lumpen Station (CH), Kolektiv Radio (KS), Molla e Kuqe (KS)
Venues: Burgu i Idealit (Former Prishtina Prison) and Hani i dy Robertëve, Prishtina
Supported by: Embassy of Switzerland in Kosovo, Austrian Embassy in Prishtina, Institut Français du Kosovo / French Embassy in Prishtina
