Albanian Women to March against PM

Albania’s opposition Socialist MPs will hold a rally on Tuesday to protest what they call a culture of criminal impunity installed by Prime Minister Sali Berisha.

Besar Likmeta

Tirana “The rule of law starts with the equality of everyone before the justice system, being those officials, simple family men, or those who serve the regime,” Socialist MP Shegushe Ligori said in a statement on Sunday. “There is no justice in the Albania of Sali Berisha,” she added.

Ligori and other female Socialist MPs have distributed leaflets over the past week calling on women to march against the government in several towns on International Women's Day, accusing the government for the murder of four unarmed protestors during a January 21 rally.

A violent opposition protest on January 21, turned deadly when members of the Republican Guard opened fire on unarmed protestors, killing four and wounding more than a dozen.

The January 21 rally turned into a riot when several hundred marchers attacked the police barricade set up to protect the prime minister’s office, using sticks, stones and Molotov cocktails. Police responded with tear gas, water cannons and later with live ammunition.

Prosecutors are investigating the murders, the organisers of the protest and the violent demonstrators that attacked the police, and the incident has sparked the latest political crisis to hit Albania.

An even larger opposition rally is expected to be held on March 15, to mark the third anniversary of deadly blast at an ammunition depot near the village of Gerdec that killed 26 people and wounded more than three hundred.