In a statement to the media today, Prime Minister Edi Rama again attacked the protesters, claiming that organized crime and “foreign hands” are behind them. He said intensive investigations into those alleged links are continuing.
Rama said that, in his view, the people detained and subjected to proceedings by the State Police aim to destabilize the country and divert Albania from its path, taking it back to the past.
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The head of state also stressed that the problems facing society, families, students and young people are legitimate and need solutions, but said violence cannot be justified.
According to Rama, what he called “urban terror” was not caused by thousands of citizens, but by a group of radicalized people.
Rama: They have been detained and subjected to proceedings by the State Police. It is a significant list, representative of a violent element of the protest that has joined this diverse gathering of people with a very clear aim: to destabilize the country and divert us from our path, taking us back to the past. Naturally, organized crime and foreign hands are behind those people, and we are continuing to investigate the latter intensively. But what struck me most was the reaction of the corporate television channels to a list that should, at the very least, have made everyone reflect on their failure to distance themselves from violence and their continued downplaying of it in the name of students and young people. According to those channels, and especially according to the VIPs on evening shows, this is a transformative moment for Albania.
In fact, there is no transformative moment, only an open challenge involving problems that need to be addressed: the problems of society, ordinary families, students and young people, all of them legitimate, and violence. The language of stones, sticks, fire, hatred, insults and threats cannot gain acceptance in civic life if they want a safe tomorrow for this country. We are working intensively, for extended hours, to address both sides of this protest. I want to make clear that we are paying very close attention, and I am personally paying very close attention, to the real reasons and causes that lead many people to sympathize with a protest and feel the need to protest, even though they distance themselves from violence. That urban terror was not caused by thousands of citizens, but by a diverse group of people, some radicalized ideologically, ANTIFA, and others radicalized religiously.
