Tirana Times
TIRANA, June 22 – The Red-And-Black Alliance formally asked the parliament to hold a referendum on excluding the questions on the ethnicity and religion from the census.
The grouping handed over to the parliament a petition signed by hundreds of thousands of Albanians inside and outside Albania, a move that was pushed after the government said a day earlier Albanians were free to chose whether to answer or not those two issues at the census. The government has decided to begin the population census in October. This was announced by Genc Pollo, head of the Central Committee of the Census.
As part of the census, Albanian will be given the opportunity to declare their ethnicity, religion and languageנthough Pollo said that these three questions would be optional, due to the controversy that has surrounded them.
The Red-and-Black Alliance organization again complained about such a decision saying they will soon introduce a petition signed by hundreds of thousands of Albanians asking for a referendum as to whether those three issues should be included in the census. They fear that many Albanians will declare themselves as Greeks because they work in the neighbouring country and fear being fired from their jobs there or deported, if they state that they are Albanian.
