The unravelling of events in southern Albania begins ON PAGE 4

Macedonian bullets against Albanians at the border ON PAGE 4

The Elbasan Prosecutor’s Office opens an investigation into the massacre ON PAGE 4

Arbnori’s wife is not allowed to go to the hunger-strike cell. Tirana’s Democratic Party welcomes the stance of Albania’s Mandela. Hundreds of young people go to the front of the People’s Assembly headquarters. The Democratic Party branch’s activists in Tirana The headquarters of the former Central Committee of the PPSH, where the Presidium of the People’s Assembly is currently housed, is returning to its original function. Yesterday, after a lengthy meeting, Skënder Gjinushi ordered that MP Pjetër Arbnori, who is on hunger strike in protest against the violation of the opposition’s rights and fundamental human freedoms, be isolated. Neither his wife, nor his sister, nor his children, nor journalists, nor his relatives have been allowed to communicate with Albania’s Mandela. His telephone is monitored and periodically disconnected, also on the orders of Gjinushi and Dokle. The claims of the PPSH Central Committee keep mounting. Journalists are driven out of the Parliament Presidium headquarters as if they were vagrants. Pressure, blackmail, provocations and provocateurs are meanwhile increasingly entering the room-cell where Arbnori is on hunger strike. A day earlier, Gjinushi and Dokle had asked Arbnori to end the strike, but when they saw how determined he was, they took special measures. In addition to barbaric pressure and provocations, worthy only of Albanian communists, yesterday they sought to take extreme measures, including the use of force against a member of the People’s Assembly, a symbolic figure of anti-communist resistance and of the struggle to defend ideas, convictions and principles for a free and democratic soc[?] society. Now that Arbnori’s hunger strike has entered its fifth day and the repression of the established regime has been displayed in the most primitive way, every Albanian understands how right the People’s Assembly deputy was in his sublime and self-sacrificing act of protest. The public’s growing response from all four corners of the country, through messages, telegrams of support and direct visits to the striking MP, has driven the new rulers mad. After violently coming to power, they thought the time had come when they could do whatever they wanted to people and the nation. Without even putting out the embers of the fires with which they burned Albania, those people of crime took power, thinking they had the right to silence and subjugate honest Albanians, trampled underfoot in Albania. Making themselves the masters of this country and this people, this loathsome breed of criminals unfortunately believe they can infect citizens and bring back to Albania the accursed era for all Albanians. But they are mistaken, because Albanians understand better each day how much they have become like their own barbarians. Yesterday, hundreds of activists from the largest opposition party held peaceful demonstrations in support of Arbnori’s hunger strike. Young people, men and women gathered and demonstrated peacefully in support of the act of Albania’s Mandela. Dozens of citizens, groups from associations, groups, parties and other groups have sent telegrams of support and solidarity, also promising to sign up for the strike as an act of solidarity and support for Pjetër Arbnori. Just as the KPD, which now governs, has criminally managed to [unclear] the Albanians of Arbnori in the prison house of Arbnori, at the headquarters of the People’s Assembly. The more they isolate the MP, the more support he receives. The more they separate him from his supporters and backers, who continue to grow in number, the more strength and courage they give him to carry through his aim: to oppose the violation of the opposition, and to liberate democracy and fundamental human rights. The man responsible for the primitive isolation and imprisonment of Pjetër Arbnori in the Republic of Albanian Democracy has truly shown what they are made of in power. Today is the fifth day of the hunger strike by the former Speaker of the People’s Assembly and Democratic Party MP, Pjetër Arbnori. The Socialists bring out the handcuffs.

TVSH director: No news about Arbnori’s hunger strike Director of TVSH: No news about Arbnori’s hunger strike Television imposes a blackout on the hunger strike Censorship of the opposition and its MPs continues. In TVSH’s news broadcast about the meeting between Democratic MP Arbnori and Parliament Speaker Gjinushi and Deputy Speaker Dokle, the report showed only excerpts of S. Gjinushi’s and N. Dokle’s statements and presented none of MP Arbnori’s replies. At this meeting, Gjinushi and Dokle reiterated the censorship of the opposition and its MPs. meeting, Gjinushi and Dokle reiterated the censorship of the Albanian opposition, which prevents its political positions and actions from being reflected on TVSH. The act of the Television and the commissars who run it, though immoral, is nothing other than a continuation of the denigrating stance toward the Albanian opposition, which has been demonstrated more than once during the total blackout imposed on all these positions. On TVSH, regarding the meeting between the Democratic MP Arbnori and the Speaker of Parliament Gjirushi and Deputy Speaker of Parliament Dokle, the news report showed only excerpts of Gjirushi’s and N. Dokle’s statements and did not show any of MP Arbnori’s replies. At this meeting, Gjirushi and Dokle, after sending the cameramen out, invited Arbnori to end his hunger strike without giving him any legal guarantees that the MP’s rights would be respected. In his statement, Arbnori replied that he would continue the hunger strike until he received full legal guarantees concerning the violations of the rights of the MP and the opposition, and would not ... ... for its political shenanigans on TVSH. The conduct of the Television and the commissars who run it, although immoral, is nothing but expressed more than once through the total blackout imposed on all positions and statements by the PDSH regarding the political situation the country is going through. Last night, the Director-commissar of TVSH, Mazi, ordered that no news about MP Arbnori’s hunger strike be broadcast. In sync with Gjirushi’s orders to imprison him inside the People’s Assembly building, Mazi has decided to block all information concerning the strike.

Campaign for new elections in the DP. The Tirana DP branch’s assembly is held ON PAGE 2 Berisha: Today’s government is a Marxist lecture hall

The reaction of a DP voter to the 52 audible appellants Asked about articles published in several Albanian newspapers concerning a statement against the Democratic Party by 52 appellants, a voter of this party declared: “We are dealing with a group of people who have become accustomed to signing publicly and publicly in dark offices (and it is precisely for the latter reason that they have left the DP and its structures). We note that among them there are also several mid-level officials, who chose to sign for the sole reason of preserving their current positions and, as the published testimonies of the new powerholders show, their freedom of movement. The DP is pleased to note that it is to its benefit for such people to be removed from its structures. This is also demonstrated by the departure of several former ministers, who also led the new section that ‘achieved a very resounding electoral victory in the latest elections.’”

The Tirana branch assembly supports Pjetër Arbnori’s hunger strike At the assembly of the DP branch in Tirana, held yesterday, full support was expressed for Pjetër Arbnori’s hunger strike as a protest against the communist revanche of the government installed by force, which is systematically denying freedoms and human rights and violating the values of democracy. In support of this protest, the assembly of the DP branch in Tirana expressed its solidarity peacefully near the premises of the Presidium of the People’s Assembly, where Pjetër Arbnori is spending the fourth day of his hunger strike.

Arbnori’s response after being isolated “What is the truth about an order to isolate you issued by Gjirushi?” — The officers told me that an order had been issued for them to enforce the Parliament’s regulations. They told me that outsiders must not enter the Parliament offices. This is not an ordinary case; it is an exceptional one, because in my view, the entry of my friends and family members does not disturb public order or infringe on anything. ON PAGE 3

Arbnori’s wife, Suzana, speaks “For Pjetër’s relatives, when was it easier for them to visit Pjetër, today or during the communist dictatorship’s prisons?” — His sister says that seeing him was more possible when he was serving his sentences in the dictatorship’s prisons than it is now, under this regime.

Tusha lies about the shooting of the “RD” journalist Editorial staff of the Rilindja Demokratike newspaper The editorial staff of the Rilindja Demokratike newspaper is very interested in having every detail of the shooting of its political editor clarified. We do not want the grave act of the attack, which resulted in our journalist being seriously wounded, to have a political, terrorist, or other such character. But we cannot accept the falsification being attempted concerning its causes and perpetrators. All the more so when this is undertaken by the Director of the Tirana Police, Pashk Tusha; we have strong reason to doubt the true nature of the incident. Mr. Tusha, if he is going to take it upon himself to report on the incident, should find a more credible way to lie. Because the Chief of Police Station 1, Albert Dervishi, as well as other police officers, were at Hospital No. 2 every day, where Muja received first aid. They came again to the military hospital. First Dervishi with the police officers, and much later Tusha. Tusha should remember that they sent the other people outside—the journalist’s colleagues and others—and he and Dervishi questioned him, perhaps also in the presence of the judicial police officer. But the prosecutor was absent from the questioning, because Tusha should remember very well that he asked over the radio for them to come outside and was told they could not be found. Even if the prosecutor did come, he came after two police officers had taken the journalist to Tirana and questioned him. Naturally, the journalist was in shock from his injuries, as was his wife because of the incident, so his questioning by Tusha and Dervishi or some other police officer serves only to justify them and conceal the truth, and in no way to shed light on the incident. Tusha’s account of the police car is compromising and highly suspicious. Tusha says, “The officer did his duty; he provided the necessary assistance to a citizen.” Very well, the officer did well to take care of Tusha, the benefactor. But why did the officer not do his police duty? Why did he not follow the car? Why did he not report it so that the car could be pursued and caught—or did he not have a radio with him? The Director of the Tirana Police, with ver... As for the colleagues at “Gazeta Shqiptare,” which gave him space in the newspaper to present his self-justifying version, we remind them that they should do something for their murdered colleague. Ali Uka, the circumstances and the manner in which he was massacred, can be read about in the magazine “Klan.”

Yesterday, in front of the People’s Assembly building, where he is on hunger strike, Pjetër Arbnori