TIRANA, Oct. 23 /ATA/ – Prime Minister Edi Rama said protests over the past week had been accompanied by a manipulation of reality, arguing that police officers had suffered the most in the clashes.
The right to protest was an unquestionable right of every citizen, while violence was an unjustifiable crime, Rama said in a message posted on social media.
“I am here to share with you one of the components of what happened during the days of psychological terror inflicted on the capital and the Albanian people. These components are being analysed and dismantled step by step,” he said.
Rama reiterated that peaceful protest was an unquestionable right, but said violence could not be justified.
“Unfortunately, both came together during last week’s protests: on the one hand, the right to protest, an unquestionable right, and on the other, violence, a crime that was played down and, moreover, glorified on the screens of corrupt evening media programmes,” the prime minister said.
He said people “in Albania and abroad have watched the protests with anxiety and have been exposed to a false portrayal of events.”
“Hour after hour, day after day, Albanians, both at home and abroad, watched anxiously as terror held everyone hostage. They were inundated with the entirely false notion that innocent, idealistic students who had taken to the streets to liberate Albania were being subjected to police violence,” Rama said.
He described the coverage as “a dramatic, manipulative reversal of an entirely different reality”.
Rama also cited figures comparing the number of police officers injured with protesters and passers-by hurt during demonstrations in Albania and elsewhere in Europe.
“I have shared with you reports comparing injured police officers with injured protesters in Europe and Albania. In the countries where similar incidents have occurred, as well as in Tirana, there have in fact been more than two police officers injured for every protester or passer-by hurt, whereas the ratio is entirely different in all the other countries,” he said.
The government head argued that police had been the side most affected by the recent clashes in Tirana.
“It is unheard of for the police to be the most affected, most injured and most subjected to violence during a demonstration or a series of demonstrations. Yet that is what happened here, as the figures and facts show, despite the narrative created and repeatedly aired on corrupt media screens. There will be another time to talk about the corrupt media,” Rama said.
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