Everyone to Skanderbeg Square on Saturday The “League Against Dictatorship” is organizing a protest rally on Saturday, 26.09.1998, at 11:00, against the dictatorship that Fatos Nano’s criminal gang is seeking to impose in Albania. Every citizen of Tirana, as in 1990, can contribute to bringing down Fatos Nano’s clique by taking part in this violent protest—a clique that, through its betrayal, is inflicting new wounds on Albania and democracy every day. Everyone to the square—to save Nano’s government.

Changes in the government include the departure of several ministers ON PAGE 3

Colonel Sali Shehu is also in custody—the man who saved Tirana in March last year—as well as Fatos Hoxha, former commander of the commando troops ON PAGE 4 Chief terrorist Fatos Nano is once again against peace. Political prisons are reopened for the opposition. The chairman of the Legality Party and two former senior military officers are behind bars

Albania’s prime minister and chief prosecutor, Fatos Nano, yesterday ordered the arrest of the chairman of the Legality Party, Ekrem Spahia; the former chief of Tirana Police Station No. 2, Colonel Sali Shehu; and the former commander of the Commando troops, Colonel Fatos Hoxha. All three arrests are part of the provocations that the PS thug is directing at the opposition and all Albanians. By arresting the Legality Party leader, whose party is the third-largest in Albania and the second-largest among the opposition parties, he once again demonstrates his blind hatred of all Albanian nationalists and the Albanian opposition. Meanwhile—Meanwhile, he declares open war and seeks to foment conflict among Albanians in order to achieve precisely the interests that keep him in the post of prime minister: civil war, division, and the destruction of the country. After killing the December Leader, Azem Hajdari; after firing on his portrait on September 14; after killing five people in front of the Prime Minister’s Office and wounding more than sixty others, he has returned to political arrests. Five days ago he arrested prominent journalists in the country, while yesterday he turned his campaign against important opposition leaders and senior figures from the democratic government. The war the prime minister is waging will end up costing the prime minister his head. Albanians have no intention of killing one another for an anti-Albanian maniac, nor do they intend to keep a criminal and murderer at the head of the government. The history of Fatos Nano’s rule is full of political killings, arrests, and persecution, and it will also be remembered as the government of the mafia, drugs, and the most vicious anti-Albanian plots. These arrests further intensify the political tension in the country. Despite calls from the international community for Nano to stop persecuting the opposition, the criminal figure in the Albanian government has filled his office with handcuffs and is once again seeking to put them on not only the opposition, but all Albanians. Fatos Nano’s anti-Albanian zeal is no different from that of Milošević or other anti-Albanian institutions that brought him to power. Only two days ago, a joint statement by the OSCE, Council of Europe, EU, and WEU called on the co-governing parties and on Nano to change course. It also called for steps to prevent the country’s polarization. Likewise, a joint statement by Clinton, who has come to the presidency, calls on Majdani to ensure political consensus and lead the country toward a political solution. Yesterday’s resolution of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe likewise takes the same tone toward Fatos Nano’s current regime, calling on him to renounce violence. But Fatos Nano has nothing in common with the West and democratic values. He has become blinded by the vices of prison, where he had been imprisoned, and has turned his office into a place of blood, hatred, and [tufë]. The arrests he is carrying out among the opposition have the same objective as those of dictator Millosheviç or other anti-Albanian leaders, who do not go far beyond the borders of Albania. To arrest the leader of the Legality Party, Ekrem Spahiu, after you stole and burned the votes for the monarchy in the June 29 elections, after you killed on July 2 and provoked him into holding his protest; to arrest Sali Shehu, the former police chief who defended Tirana from Nano’s gang during last year’s rebellion; to arrest Fatos Hoxha, who protected his unit from the communist rebels in January 1997, means taking away the values that he and the others possess and forcibly steering the country toward unwanted destruction.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopts a resolution on Albania The murder of Azem Hajdari, the lifting of the opposition leader’s immunity, and the imprisonment of journalists are strongly condemned. The brutal arrest of six PD leaders was a political provocation that disrupted dialogue and undermined the constitutional process. Meidani should act as mediator in resolving the political crisis. Without a political solution, there will be no aid from the West ON PAGE 2

PD Chairman Sali Berisha welcomes the positions of the United States and Italy on resolving the crisis Berisha: We are distant from violence and condemn it ON PAGE 3

Nano orders the blocking of the Council of Europe Assembly’s resolution in the state media. On state television controlled by Nano, through his lackeys, the Council of Europe Assembly’s Resolution was reported only in snippets, while the full contents of the Resolution were censored, and none of the isolation and condemnation of Nano’s Government adopted by the Council of Europe Assembly in Strasbourg was broadcast. The blocking of the Council of Europe Resolution comes immediately after the shameful censorship of the Troika’s Resolution, also on Nano’s orders, and is clear evidence of the panic that has gripped the Clique, which thinks that with such medieval and vile acts of blocking and censoring the international community’s position, it will prolong its days in power. Nano’s mouthpiece, the shameful television station, thunders all day at the clique leader’s direction against the opposition and citizens, and constantly censors or blocks information and the positions of the opposition, the international community, and citizens regarding this hated clique and the alternatives for emerging from the crisis. Telenanoksi did not broadcast the Resolution’s condemnation by the Council of Europe Assembly of Nano’s government for the arrest of journalists, the removal of the opposition leader’s immunity, the imprisonment of journalists, etc. Telenanoksi did not broadcast the Assembly’s position on the murder of the December Movement leader, Azem Hajdari, or the serious warnings by the Council of Europe to stop violence and terror against the opposition, and to stop crime and smuggling. But neither censorship nor blocking will be able to save Nano and his clique from the punishment of the Albanians and the international community, which have isolated him once and for all.

Shkodër: “League Against Dictatorship” is determined to bring down Nano The parties participating in the “League Against Dictatorship” group are determined to continue their efforts to bring down the neodictatorship that is attempting to take hold in Albania. Neither the censorship of the press and electronic media, nor beatings, arrests, or the killing of democrats will stop us from holding our powerful protests against an anti-national government that makes deals without principles at the expense of citizens and the country itself. By all democratic means, we will continue our efforts to defend freedom of speech and human rights, to defend national dignity, and to defend democratic standards. We will defend, at the cost of supreme sacrifices, the achievements of our fragile democracy, and we will not allow anyone to trample on the sacrifices, blood, and lives lost in prisons in defense of free speech and democratic standards. Citizens’ participation in peaceful demonstrations against dictatorship is the right response that can be made today. We must not make the mistake of our ancestors and sit by the radio, listening to what foreigners say about us; instead, we must appeal to the civic conscience and protest together until the neocommunists are finally overthrown. We distance ourselves from every kind of violence and from anyone seeking to disturb the peace of Shkodra. We condemn and will vigorously denounce every scenario that the state security forces, the reactivated SHIK, seek to carry out at Shkodra’s expense. Shkodra’s break with communism is historic, and the current government’s efforts to rule Shkodra with an iron fist are laughable, because Shkodra has never spared sacrifices in its confrontations with dictatorships. We call on the citizens of Shkodra to gather once again today, at 12:00, in front of the prefecture. At protests against dictatorship and neo-dictators. COORDINATING COMMISSION

Durrës: “League Against Dictatorship”—let us defeat the dictatorship All anti-communists in the city of Durrës are hereby informed that today, 25.09.1998, at 17:30, a protest rally will be held in front of the PD branch headquarters against the communist dictatorship that Fatos Nano is attempting to reinstall in Albania. Against: political killings and imprisonments; terror, poverty, and smuggling by the Nano government

Today, 25.09.1998, at 11:00 in Fushë Krujë, “Union for Democracy” is organizing a protest rally in defense of Democracy. Take to the square before it is too late! “UNION FOR DEMOCRACY”

The courts under the heel of the ruling clique’s criminal politics The senior leaders of the justice institutions have always tried to reward their bosses not through work and integrity in respecting the laws, but through illegal actions against the opposition. ON PAGE 5

Blue uniforms forcibly take a “fine” of 5,000 drachmas from every refugee 10 from Fieri, who was an eyewitness and a living target of the blue uniforms, says that after they were stopped at a place called Pogane, they were ordered to take out all the money they had with them. ON PAGE 6

Ekrem Spahia