The World Briefly
February 22, 2024Mirror, Mirror
Albania
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Thousands of Albanian citizens took to the streets of the capital Tirana this week to protest against government corruption, Euronews reported.
Demonstrators, including many supporters of Albania’s opposition, protested in front of Prime Minister Edi Rama’s office, with some protesters throwing stones and flares at police officers.
Tuesday’s unrest is the latest opposition-led protest to grip Albania since October.
At issue is the refusal by the ruling left-wing Socialist Party to probe cases of corruption involving Rama and other top officials. The government has refused calls to form parliamentary commissions to investigate the accusations.
Many demonstrators also expressed solidarity with former Prime Minister Sali Berisha, who is currently under house arrest amid an ongoing investigation for allegedly abusing his post to help his son-in-law privatize public land to build apartment complexes.
Berisha – currently one of the disputed heads of the center-right Democratic Party (DP) – has accused Rama of graft and of attacking his family. The former prime minister was banned from entering the United States in 2021 and the United Kingdom in 2022 because of the corruption accusations.
But supporters of another wing of DP did not participate in Tuesday’s protest and criticized Berisha for exploiting it for personal gain.
The protests took place on the 33rd anniversary of the fall of the communist regime in Albania.
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