During an interview, Prime Minister Aleksander Meksi... During an interview, Prime Minister Aleksander Meksi expressed his strong support for Russia’s democratic reformer, Boris Jelcin, who has for some time had his strong support in the Russian parliament. “Every democrat in the world,” Meksi said, “must support the conservatives ... in Russia and Jelcin.” The Prime Minister made it known that “there is a possibility of a par...llel between events in Albania and those in Russia, when it comes to those political forces with a communist past that want to change the new democratic systems.” ATSH

On Monday, 22.3.1993, at the invitation of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation... On Monday, 22.3.1993, at the invitation of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, the chairman of the PDSH, Mr. Eduard Selami, [went] to Germany. Mr. Selami, based in Bonn, set out for [meetings] with parliamentarians and members of the German Bundestag. PDSH OFFICE...

-Conservative Albanian communist-socialists such as Fatos Nano, Sabit Broj, Namik D... launch a frontal attack against human freedoms and rights- -The former leaders of the PPSH, converted into socialists, those who oppressed, persecuted and massacred the people, seek to block democracy- Fascist-style discussions in parliament by socialist deputies Gramoz Ruçi, former minister during the Shkodra massacre and the February coup, defen... corruption and its most unrestrained champions

PJETER ARBNORI -The law on human rights and freedoms is in everyone’s favor and harms no one. -A law that honors the President before Parliament, Parliament before the people, and Albania before Europe. -We have no right to take anyone’s life BLERIM ÇELA -A law that constitutes one of the pillars of democracy in Albania. -To vote against it means to deny oneself, democracy, and the fundamental freedoms of a... The absence of a law on rights ... is painful and shameful, but also ... democracy, and fundamental freedoms ... since we have not yet granted it. By adding the law on human rights and freedoms to the main constitutional provisions, a gap is filled whose time has come to be filled. A democratic revolution took place in Albania without civil war, without violence, without bloodshed, and it honors the Albanian people in the eyes of Europe. The maturity, restraint, and tolerance that we all showed at a key moment in our history have placed us alongside the most civilized peoples of the world. In truth, we have always been like this, but almost always we have been like a plant beneath a heavy slab, without light, air, or sun, unable to show what we could do. Now that the giant stone of dictatorship has been blown up and shattered, the plant will soon grow toward the sun, turn green, and blossom with fragrant, many-colored flowers. The presentation and approval of this fundamental law, based on the most advanced democratic standards in the world and the charters of Helsinki, Copenhagen, and Paris, honors the President before Parliament, Parliament before the people who elected it, and Albania before Europe, which we will join. This law is a step that will bring us closer to this ideal, this aspiration, which will soon and surely become reality. This fundamental law is in everyone’s favor and harms no one. It protects the individual from any violence that may be inflicted on them. It guarantees the protection of people’s lives and health, freedom of thought and its expression, freedom of speech, the press, and information. This law makes freedom of the press equal in its guarantees; it safeguards the privacy of the person and their home, the right to peaceful assembly—unarmed—the workers’ freedom of association, freedom of peaceful assembly, etc. It ensures independence for free activity, guarantees minorities freedom of language, protects ethnic minorities, believers, etc., etc. Everyone has the full opportunity to assess, complete, improve, and expand this law by adding freedoms and rights. And we must never forget that “my freedom is equal to my equality” and that “my freedom ends where the freedom of another begins.” I want to give the best example of this right to honor [unclear], not as chairman of the Presidium of the People’s Assembly, since there was still a president; for two or three days the Presidium functioned as the presidency. My employees may remember well: the first question I asked was: do you have anyone sentenced to death whose sentence could be changed? To bring about this change through this law, I propose abolishing the death penalty in Albania. “I will not present any new argument; indeed, I respect the opposing views that a colleague may hold. I will only repeat what world legal literature has long recognized. We have no right to take anyone’s life, since we have not given it to them. Studies by jurists have demonstrated with irrefutable statistics that the death penalty does not reduce crime at all. Most murderous criminals are abnormal people. We are witnesses to the fact that in a considerable number of other countries in Europe and around the world, the death penalty has been abolished and replaced with life imprisonment. Abolishing the death penalty is at the same time a sign of humanism in a civilized and modern society. Life imprisonment, or a very long, non-reducible sentence, is sufficient for those who commit heinous crimes and grave offenses. Only someone who has experienced this kind of sentence can speak. In the first postwar years, when people’s heads were falling like onion heads, there were five men sentenced to death in the makeshift prison of Shijak. It became known that three of them would be executed the following day, while the sentences of the other two would be commuted to life imprisonment. The prisoners went into the room of the three who were to leave this life to comfort them. The oldest among those sentenced to death said to them: You have come to the wrong people. We, who are to be killed, are in a hurry; you should go and comfort those two whose lives have been spared. They have been sentenced more harshly. Do you know what it means to suffer a life sentence? I want to add something else. When you elected me chairman of the Presidium of the People’s Assembly, while there was still a president, the Presidium functioned as the presidency for two or three days. was: do you have anyone sentenced to death who might be able to [sentence wording cuts off]... deny yourself, a law on human rights is a gap that is being filled with the presentation of this draft, which should be welcomed and adopted as one of the pillars of democracy in Albania. It is strange, but not unexpected, that the social-communist opposition casts doubt on its implementation by distorting all the activities of the government and other state organizations, with the aim of obscuring the greatest achievement of the Albanian people, the victory of the democratic forces on March 22, 1992. To hear sophistry and accusations today from those and the descendants of those who never even contemplated human freedoms and rights, let alone put them into practice; to hear accusations from those who must account for prisons, internments, expulsions, extrajudicial killings, show trials, and the complete denial of the most elementary human rights, is painful and shameful, but also an expression of the tolerance of today’s democratic state. The very accusations they make against the democratic forces show the space the democratic state has opened up for the free expression of opinion in the press, in public, and everywhere. We are fighting to restore what the social-communists took away from our people through 50 years of feudal-communist oppression, and now, without the slightest shame, the persecutors speak of the people and their freedoms, which they violently denied them for decades. We are fighting for true civilization; you deny it. Adopting this humane draft law is a help, not an obstacle, to the rapid drafting of the constitution. To vote against this draft means to deny yourself, democracy, and the fundamental human freedoms that fully integrate us into advanced European society. The people watch us, listen to us, and judge who defends and who grants—and denies—their inalienable rights. During your 45 years of rule, people were brutally deprived of the right to life; they were denied the right to speak, freedom of religion and conscience, the right to assemble and organize, the right to defend themselves, the right to choose where to live, the right to leave the country, the right to private property, the right to strike—they were denied everything, the right to live as human beings; but they had many other “rights,” such as being forced to work, being expelled, interned, imprisoned without appeal, being made to spy, having their character destroyed, being humiliated, tortured, confronted with the panon, etc., etc. This draft law is ... [the source text here is corrupt and largely unintelligible] ... The proper vote of the Albanian people, at any time, is the greatest indicator of the transition. Who we are and the products set apart by ... were secured. I appeal to all ... democratic assistance ... all the security of the people (Continued on page 4)

-It is your duty to remind us who you are! “No, opposition gentlemen! You have no moral right to vote for this law. Vote courageously” against it”! People wait, although they know you, they may forget. It is your duty to remind them who you are.” If there is a place where human rights have been violated in the most barbaric, most unscrupulous way, that place was Albania during the communist era, and without the struggle of the student youth, of the PD and of the other opposition parties that rallied the entire people around them, this situation would have continued for many more decades. That is why the parliament’s approval of this law is necessary, indeed long overdue. But even today, when, at the President’s initiative, parliament is being given the opportunity to approve such a law, the stance of the communist-socialist opposition remains, as always, destructive and deeply conservative. And how could it be otherwise? Can those who for 50 years uprooted these rights in the most barbaric way vote to protect human rights—the people who for 50 years killed tens of thousands of people, imprisoned hundreds of thousands more, expropriated people, taking even the robots of the body, and turned Albanians into beggars? Who in the opposition will support this law: the former members of the PPSH Central Committee—..., who are present today on the left side of this parliament? Or some member of the Çarçani government, which filled the border with the corpses of Albanian youth? Do they think they can support this law? The daughters of those fathers who stained their hands with the blood of innocent victims in the cells of the Sigurimi? Or those who today live in their villas while the people they imprisoned and executed now live in dormitory rooms or basements? Honorable members of parliament! Given all these monstrosities on the left side of this parliament, they will never approve the law on the protection of human rights. They accuse us of failing to protect in this law the rights of Albanian emigrants everywhere in the world. And who is doing this? Those who two years ago voted unanimously to elect Ramiz Alia president, knowing full well that during 1989–90 alone, when Alia was president, hundreds of young men were killed at the border. Is such an act not shameless? They accuse us of failing to implement laws—the successors of those who for 50 years did not (Continued on page 2)

-A law that constitutes one of the pillars of democracy in Albania. -To vote against it means to deny yourself, democracy, and the fundamental freedoms of a

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