TIRANA, April 3 – A dozen of the arrested protesters’ family members, as well as Kukes and Tirana citizens and civil society representatives, have continued to protest in front of police headquarters in Tirana the past few days for the arrested to be released.
Protesters, civil society and human rights defenders have been holding out signs reading ‘Down with Dictatorship’ and ‘Free our Brothers.’
Opposition MPs – mainly from the Democratic Party (DP) and the Socialist Movement for Integration (SMI) – and followers also joined the protest, which became tense when some opposition MPs tried to enter police headquarters to meet the arrested on Monday.
Head of the opposition’s DP Lulzim Basha asked during a press conference on Sunday that the prosecution and police release those who were arrested for protesting against the road toll at the Nation Highway.
“We ask for the immediate release of the illegally abducted Kukes citizens, who were taken without an arrest warrant, under the penal act of illegally taking someone’s freedom away,” Basha said.
He added the country’ general prosecution office is acting as a “political investigation unit” in Prime Minister Edi Rama’s service.
In this context, both him and head of SMI Monika Kryemadhi called for civil disobedience as, according to them, all other democratic methods of opposing the government’s “autocratic” decisions have been exhausted.
According to Basha, civil disobedience means to “refuse every concessionary tax and tax raise. The tax on small businesses, the raised taxes on water consumption, the raised property tax and all other taxes raised to fill the pockets of Edi Rama and his band of co-rulers.”
Rama has not changed his position since his first press conference concerning the protests on Saturday, calling the protesters “a group of vandals that did barbarian acts.”
“The police did the maximum by maintaining their calm, but the toll for that highway will not be lowered, it will be applied with determination, while the violence perpetrators will be punished according to the law,” Rama said on Sunday.
A police statement released said it has officially arrested 23 people, while another dozen is wanted for clashing with police and vandalizing public property.
