TIRANA, May 3 – The Albanian parliament has passed a law allowing the country’s citizens to access the their secret police files from the communist era.
Albania and Russia had been the only former communist countries where the files of the secret police were kept shut tight since the fall of their feared communist regimes.
There is no official number, but how many files the notorious Sigurimi secret police had, but the media have reported unofficial sources keeping that figure to about 20 percent of the population.
The Sigurimi was a powerful tool in the rule of late communist dictator Enver Hoxha, who came to power after World War II, in a bid to suppress opposition or anti-communist protests, until the regime’s collapse in 1991.
The law was passed only with the votes of the Socialist-led governing coalition, at a vote of 84-22. The opposition Democrats said they did not agree with the draft law and feared that would be used to fight the government’s opponents through lustration.
In fact, the country has passed such laws at least twice, when the Democrats have been in power. But they have had no result in opening the Sigurimi files.
The Socialists said the parliament has created a commission to prepare a law on decriminalization that will involve all persons with a criminal past, not letting them free run for public posts.
The new law allows access to the files by people who were monitored by the regime, who collaborated with the regime, and to all institutions interested in them.
The requested files will be examined by a five-member committee who will make them available to those interested. The committee will also deliver “certificates of non-collaboration” with the regime to those seeking a post in the state administration or running for office.
According to experts, a large part of secret police files were destroyed in 1991 and 1992 while the communists were still in power, and also in 1997 during an armed rebellion in Albania.
Some 7,000 opponents of the communist regime were killed and about 100,000 were deported to labor camps, where many of them died, during the 1944-1990 period.
