TIRANA, April 17 – During a press conference held after the opposition’s protest on Saturday, Minister of Interior Sander Lleshaj said the rallies have distracted the State Police from dealing with criminal groups’ illegal activities.
“The protest once again contributed to shifting the focus of the police and the forces of public order from the fight against elements or criminal groups to facing an illegal protest. Through this, the organizers managed to once again offer an area of comfort and tranquility for criminal groups, especially nowadays, where the struggle and commitment of police forces to capturing them is more than ever necessary,” Lleshaj told reporters.
Further on, he said the escalation of the protest is shifting it “from a public order problem to a constitutional order problem, which means that organizers and participants may soon face charges related to the violation and attack on the organs and the constitutional order of the country.”
Lleshaj is accusing the opposition of not taking any measures to make sure the protest would remain harmless and within all legal requirements.
Meanwhile, the opposition Democratic Party responded by saying that Albania only has one anti-constitutional group, and that is the governing Socialist Party.
The Socialist Movement for Integration, on the other hand, accused the police of a well-programmed scenario and successive provocations to trap the opposition, according to representative Petrit Vasili.
37 people have been arrested over Saturday’s protest, while 24 others are being prosecuted. The opposition spoke of violence against the protesters, while publishing footage of one of the detainees who ended up in the hospital.
The tensions during Saturday’s opposition protest began in front of the Prime Minister’s Office, when protesters began throwing firecrackers, bags of paint and smoke bombs. At the end of DP leader Lulzim Basha’s speech, a group of protesters broke the police line and got on the building’s stairs.
The police intervened with the protest moved in front of the parliament, where it responded to the protesters by throwing tear-gas. At least five policemen were reported injured after the protest, while the opposition has claimed at least 15 people, among them journalists, were injured or felt ill due to the tear-gas.
