Minister Demo: 156 injured in four days of protests; police must show care toward minors, parents must not allow their use

Minister of Internal Affairs Ervin Demo reacted to the protests in Albania, stating that 156 Albanian citizens had been injured over the past four days. In his statement, he said that those injured included 97 police officers, 45 protesters and 12 passersby.

Demo wished everyone a speedy recovery. He said the police officers were carrying out their duty and, like everyone else, wanted to live in peace and return to their families in the evening. According to the minister, the protesters also have legitimate aspirations for their own futures and those of their families, while the passersby may have been on their way home or carrying out their daily business.

Calling on citizens to unite and work for the good of the country instead of fighting over other people’s interests, the minister recalled the words of a doctor at the Trauma Hospital: when the injured arrive there, neither side has won.

Demo focused on the four minors who, according to him, are among those injured. He said he did not believe that any parent in Albania, regardless of political affiliation, could be pleased to see their child holding stones or other objects and attacking police officers, breaking the windows of institutions, damaging traffic lights and road signs, or looting and burning public and private property.

The minister described the use of minors for political purposes, particularly when their lives are put at risk in the struggle for power, as an unacceptable act that, in his view, should be condemned by Albanian society. He said he had repeatedly asked police forces to show particular care toward them and called on parents not to allow their children to be used by people who, according to him, recognize no human or moral limits in their pursuit of power.

Regarding the students, Demo said that opposing violence was not intended to equate them with people who choose violent actions. He said students account for an extremely small portion of those arrested or prosecuted for such acts and that he was convinced they had no connection to what he called a violent political scenario.

According to the minister, regardless of differences in opinion, the events are underpinned by a disguised attempt to seize power through violence, sparing neither minors nor the private businesses of people who are not part of this confrontation. He claimed that the aim was to obstruct Albania’s path toward the European Union and remove the country from the negotiating table with the EU, turning it back toward a past from which it had emerged through great effort.

In closing, Demo guaranteed that this effort would not succeed and that nothing would stop Albania’s European development.