VEFA threatens: The State should come to its senses. Half of Albania is with us

Who were those who came out on Sunday in Tirana’s central square? Protesters or painters? What was it that reddened the steps of the Palace of Culture, blood or paint? This dilemma, terribly cynical for the beaten victims or those urgently taken to hospital, but also for several thousand people who defied the cordons of the helmeted police two days ago in Skanderbeg Square, is the result of the fog cast over the air by the information given by RTSH and the statement of the Ministry of the Interior about the protest. On screen we saw a woman interviewed in the same style as Sude’s censored interview, in a closed room (and not on the podium of the Palace where she had been at first), and the only words heard from her mouth were “I painted it there”. Nowhere was the word “paint” heard. It was never uttered by the “witness for the prosecution”. Further on, we heard one paint can after another and people who had tried to paint themselves in front of foreign cameras. In the center, an elderly man washed in red, blood according to those who were there, paint according to the official version. From interest to paint, everything was transferred into a controversy with a red backdrop. The best response to the official tragi-comedy with red paint was given yesterday by Syrja Bebri, the bloodied man, the second hero of the satellite wave. His face took over all the channels of the world, even the Albanian one. Eight months after the elderly man who was suddenly covered in blood at the post-election opposition protest, the 58-year-old peasant Bebri from Shkoza appeared yesterday before journalists at a PS press conference, showing a cut on his head, stained with congealed blood. The names of the people who were taken to hospital as a result of the blows received and the shock caused during the protest have also been made public. One day later, opposition parties announced one dead and several arrested in Fier, among them the chair of the PS. The “Koha Jonë” journalist Roland Yzeri was also detained. The above balance definitively settles the debate about the conduct of the law enforcement forces and the special units deployed last Sunday at the “anti-interest” rallies. There was violence in Tirana and other cities, and that is clear. What may be debatable is how brutal it was against the protesters. The Ministry of the Interior declared that the law enforcement forces did not use violence. If by this statement it had in mind 28 May of last year, that may be true. Eight months earlier, police batons had spared no one, not even members of the People’s Assembly and party leaders, nor foreign journalists. But January Sunday was not May Tuesday. This time a good part of the police, as its own leaders stated, had themselves been victims of the pyramids. Those in uniform could not be left aside by those who had come out into the square to demand their lost money. The problem of interpreting popular protests should not be reduced to the level of ordinary law enforcement officers. The task of reading the signals coming from the street and responding to them belongs to the Albanian state and its main institutions. It is precisely here, in the offices where press statements are prepared and orders are given to calm the state, that the great distortion seems to occur. Here blood turns into paint and batons into requests for help. The government did not need the story of the red paint. What could have helped the state at this moment was the acceptance of the truth and honesty with itself and the public. Skënder MINXHOZI

NATIONAL LIBRARY TIRANA

Syrja Bebri, 58 years old, beaten by the police during Sunday’s rally. Photo: G. Shkullaku

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