Albanian courts on the brink of the dictatorial abyss Halit Shamata, Blerim Çela, Safet Zhulali, Sokol Mulosmani and Bujar Rama are sentenced to indefinite detention in prison, while Kreshnik Lusha is sentenced to 15 days’ detention ON PAGE 2

Fifty thousand citizens of Tirana demonstrate against Nano’s dictatorship. Down with the government of crime, smuggling and the mafia SPECIAL REPORT ON PAGES 2-3-4-5 Thousands of protesters surround the Prime Minister’s Office, the Ministry of the Interior, Nano’s villa and the Socialist Party headquarters

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Fatos Nano’s political court, without a single piece of evidence or argument, announced its decision to keep six of the leading figures of democratic governance in prison, two of whom are also members of the National Council of the Democratic Party. After this judicial farce, which took place yesterday under conditions of a complete blackout by the media and the opposition, the democrats of Albania have nothing left but to mount a great resistance against Nano’s dictatorship. Today, the battle has begun. It is the duty of democrats to stand for one life, one country, for one life. A democrat is always stronger than a bandit; a democrat is always stronger than a smuggler; a democrat is always stronger than a mafioso. Anyone who does not possess the stature of democracy poses no threat to their lives. Democrats throughout Albania must no longer think of their struggle as a struggle for the DP, for its governance, but as a struggle for Albania. It is no longer only the opposition that is at risk, but the country and its future. Democracy in Albania is facing its own massacre, and the current rulers’ aim is to display it as a trophy before all Albanians. The opposition, as the representative of all Albanians, democratic and tens [?], must devise all the necessary scenarios, beyond negative slogans, to represent throughout its life the interests of as many Albanians as possible—people who may be democrats, but who are, in any case, human beings aspiring to something in life and seeking a better future. It is no longer a matter of dialogue with the false rulers, whose power no longer exists beyond the Prime Minister’s wave [?] and the surface area of the country’s seven customs posts. For democrats, the issue is always all citizens: that the state does not exist for them, that today they live their lives in chaos, and that they themselves, their families and their property are in a state of ruin [?]. The distance democrats have today from the current rulers must be extended to everyone. Albanians must understand that they have been deceived by the vote of 29 June, by the Government, Parliament, Presidency and, finally, the judiciary as well. Thus, for ordinary people who feel they are in the opposition or are outside it, it had become a convention for the ordinary person that they are no more than a “libërlok” [?]. If today we see their wealth, acquired through mafia ties, as unjust; their shops, bought with dirty money; and their luxury cars, obtained through drug trafficking or smuggling, if we see them appearing with the same parameters [?], our long-standing pleas [?], the collective vileness, the physical violence, the prisons and camps, and the claws of repression that have appeared today on all the streets of the cities [?]. The dividing line between democracy and dictatorship is clearer today. No one should think that today’s dictatorship manifests itself through closing the borders to foreigners, banning music, poetry or decadent painting, setting up internment camps, a system of deportation or forced labor. No, this is not today’s dictatorship. If people think they can wait for that to happen and then rise up against the criminal government, a different kind of dictatorship will smother them in their sleep, choke them and take their lives, property and future. Today’s dictatorship is government mafia; smuggling that enriches dozens of people and kills thousands of businesses; police violence; and the usurpation of the media, courts and other state institutions. Today’s dictatorship is the criminal network that Nano has woven together with his bandits over the course of a year, the daytime killings, the drug paradise, and all the markers and vices of the regional mafia. Today’s dictatorship is the insecurity Albanians feel every day; their unwillingness to live and work in Albania; the pressure to prevent them from rising up; and their imprisonment so that voices of opposition are silenced. Today’s dictatorship is isolation from Europe’s major democracies, the construction of a mafia paradise and of a class of servants who will live out what today is still a deep sleep. Tirana’s main square [?] and its boulevards were packed yesterday. They should remain that way until the political and economic mafia, the gangs and the criminals in power are overthrown. There must be an overthrow so that Albanians are not themselves overthrown, together with their country and all the other Albanias [?].

Brojka: The Government has canceled the housing fund for 200 families and transferred it to those in power Housing loans, now only for those in power The Council of Ministers has approved a law that favors all senior government officials with homes or loans, while unfairly sidelining ordinary citizens who genuinely meet the “homeless” status criteria ON PAGE 6

The right-wing condemn the terror against the opposition The SP should penalize its criminal factions The Nano government aims to eliminate the opposition ON PAGE 4

The Austrian press on Albania. The newspaper “Die Presse”: Albania, the most important drug-producing country Albania, the country of the new drug barons The drug Mecca: southern Albania floods the European Union with marijuana ON PAGE 3

FREE THE POLITICAL PRISONERS. NO TO NEW BLOCKMEN AND OLD MURDERERS Yesterday, the rally in “Skënderbej” Square Photos: Albes FUSHA