On 22 October, a protest rally in “Skanderbeg” Square “The League Against Dictatorship” invites all citizens of Tirana to join a powerful protest on 22 October at 5:00 p.m.: 1. To protest against the Government’s concealment of the organizers and perpetrators of Azem Hajdari’s murder. 2. To demand the release of political prisoners. 3. To protest against the informational blackout imposed by the state media. 4. To protest against unemployment, rising prices, insecurity, crime, and growing poverty.

The meeting of the DP National Council sets the course for the opposition’s new resistance. Solving the murder of Azem Hajdari is vital to the survival of the DP . The Democrats’ patience is running out Nearly 40 days after the murder of the December leader, the murderers and organizers are paid and protected by the state. The new law on referendums is a stab in the back of the Constitution. The grassroots should be consulted on the position to take from now on regarding the constitutional process. No illusions about Majko: a reserve player of Nano and a soldier of continuity. ON PAGES 2-3-5

The courts provide yet another proof that they have become blind tools of the government ON PAGE 4 The Legalist deputy attacks the “Godo-Imami” draft

The European Parliamentary Union calls for the release of political prisoners “The European Parliamentary Union is dealing intensively with the political issue of the murder of Azem Hajdari, and with the MPs and former MPs who are under house arrest, have had their immunity removed, and are facing imprisonment,” says a letter sent by the Secretary General of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, Andres Jonsson, to the deputy chairman of the DP, Genc Pollo. ON PAGE 3

The Tirana Conference continues the Rome one, but not the Brussels one: Not a penny will be paid out Spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: It is not a donors’ conference and investments are not at its center ON PAGE 7

Today, three days after the murder of the December Leader Everything that has happened since the murder of Azem Hajdari, the symbol of democracy and pluralism, proves the involvement of Fatos Nanos and his pretender in this crime, which shook the entire Albanian world. The communist governments currently in power and the rulers who took the life of the December Leader are showing Albanians that they have been and remain on the side of the killers, who have names and surnames but are not touched by the government. Democrats and all Albanians who wished to honor Azem Hajdari cannot tolerate a scenario of this kind. The government must either apprehend the criminals and bring them to justice, or openly declare that it itself carried out the murder of Azem Hajdari.

Enver Hoxha’s “ZP” declares hunger strikes and demonstrations a coup d’état ON PAGE 3

The left-wing press seeks to cover up the shame of Meidani’s humiliation in Shkodër ON PAGE 5

Albanians are being offered, as the fundamental law of their state, a model identical to Enver Hoxha’s 1946 Constitution. Those who remember that year’s elections for the Front and the “reactionaries” recall well the few grains, as they were called, and the two corresponding ballot boxes: one belonging to the Front, decorated and conspicuous, while the other, for the reactionaries, was not a pretty box at all. In fact, the latter had a sheet of metal at its bottom, and if a grain was dropped into it, it could be identified quite easily from the noise it made! Today’s former Communists, who are not yet lousy like the former fanatics who came down from the mountains with Enver Hoxha, are behaving and acting in the same way—not with the Front and reactionaries’ ballot boxes anymore, but with the Referendum Law, a modern form, descended from the mountains. They are behaving and acting in the same way, no longer with the Front and reactionaries’ boxes, but with the Referendum Law, a modern form, to demonstrate the absence of parasites in their heads and the fact that they have completed higher education. In both cases, it is easy to understand that the Constitution will be staged and approved; and in both cases, it is clear that this is not an act belonging to and accepted by everyone, but a law that serves the interests of those in power, allowing them to justify failure, crimes, corruption, misgovernment of the country, and the division and differentiation of the population according to their differing political convictions, etc. It is clear that this kind of Constitution poses a major political and social danger, because it will legally establish the division of the population and embody the revenge that is the most authentic philosophy of the former Communists in power against all those sections of the population and social and political groups that are not inclined to behave with the servility of Sabri Godo. Even if, in the most acceptable theoretical scenario, we assume that this will not happen, it is certain that all those citizens who refuse to accept and vote for a Constitution drafted by the Socialists will, after it comes into force, live in fear of discrimination, lynching, and political and social exclusion, as well as other forms of targeting and exclusion. It is certain that such a Constitution, considered by the Socialists a political kaleidoscope that disregards procedures, objections, and concerns—and whose drafting and approval are, above all, based on the exclusion of the political opposition—cannot constitute the legal act of all citizens. Instead, it will be a factor in overturning a part of the nation, in political polarization, and in further deepening the grave problems the country is going through today. Such a Constitution, rejected by the political opposition and approved through a referendum process even with the participation of 15 people, if 8 voters vote in favor, cannot be the Constitution of the Albanians, but the legal alibi of the former Communists for continuing along the same path as until now: the path of political imprisonment, political persecution, corruption and smuggling, and of continuing to install and consolidate the political mafia, state crime, and ordinary crime within state structures and social life. It is clear that the legitimacy of such a pamphlet lasts only as long as the former Communists remain in power; this legitimacy cannot be covered up by this kind of Constitution. The distortion of the constitutional process by the former Communists in power is at the same time a blatant exposure of the fact that the basic legal act of the state, right down to the state’s stripping itself bare, constitutes an attack on the contract between citizens and the state; it is the major blow that mafia rule deals to Albanian democracy. By turning the Constitution into an emergency political measure aimed at holding on to power, this distortion is unprecedented in Albania’s history, because it shows that the person seeking power looks for salvation through such grave attacks on the state. The Constitution and the citizens. Such an attitude toward the Constitution by the governing coalition is also the final proof against that coalition since it came to power. Having failed to fulfill their promises to return the money, restore order, and fight corruption, and now demonstrating their final failure with the Constitution, their power and government become illegal, and Albanians must prepare to counter this illegitimacy with their efforts to restore legality, democracy, and dignity, in Parliament and in a government that does not rob Albanians of their votes with unfulfilled promises. Shërimi PEPOSHI

keeping attacks the “Godo-Imami” draft Ngjela: It is a left-wing constitution ON PAGE 3