TIRANA, April 4 – The protest started on Saturday against the country’s first-ever toll road in the Nation Highway of Kalimash, in Northern Albania, moved today in front of the Kukes Police Station, where around 24 protesters were arrested and accused for violence against police forces.
According to protesters, police forces entered their houses to arrest participators during the night, after cutting electricity off in the entire area, and reportedly acted violently towards them.
“They came in wearing masks and treated us like criminals,” several citizens standing outside the police station told local media.
Opposition’s Democratic Party (DP) and Socialist Movement for Integration (SMI) MPs also traveled to Kukes on Sunday to meet the head of the Kukes police, while protesters said the arrested have been transported to Tirana.
“All the arrested have been taken to Tirana, and they’ve made a show out of them. I spoke with my son, and he told me they sent them to the capital,” one anonymous protester said.
In this context, protesters have been calling for the release of those arrested, otherwise, they warned, protests will continue on a larger scale.
At his press conference on Saturday evening, Prime Minister Edi Rama said “the police maintained its professionalism against a bunch of vandals who will be punished accordingly.”
He added an informative campaign will take place in the following days, as, according to him, the protest against the road-toll was a result of public opinion manipulation and people are disregarding the tax incentives foreseen for citizens’ crossing the Nation Highway more frequently than others.
Edmond Spaho, head of the DP parliamentary group and part of the MPs who visited Kukes on Sunday, asked for the arrests to stop so that the situation doesn’t escalate.
“During the night, as if in a dictatorship, 24 people were arrested and just as many arrest warrants were issued,” Spaho told local media.
According to him, the head of the Kukes police ‘betrayed’ protesters, who only stopped the protest yesterday under the condition no one would be arrested.
“We asked the chief to stop this climate, to release the arrested sent to Tirana and to follow the way of dialogue. If we continue like this the situation may escalate,” Spaho said.
