After opposition MPs continued their protest in parliament on Thursday, clashing with the police and parliamentary guards, they claimed 'armed persons threatened the deputies with weapons'.
Fjori Sinoruka, October 17, 2024
Albanian opposition MPs holding a protest at parliament on Thursday. Photo: Isa Myzyraj
During physical clashes between opposition MPs, police and parliamentary guards on Thursday, members of Albania’s opposition centre-right Democratic Party, DP, claimed a police officer threatened one MP with a gun, which the police denied, claiming they were unarmed.
“Based on the law ‘On Assemblies’ … no police officer was equipped with firearms at the Assembly but only with protective equipment and rubber batons,” police stated.
The opposition protest started after a Tirana Court sentenced one of the opposition MPs, Ervin Salianji, to one year in prison. It continued on Thursday. Opposition MPs protested in the previous week in parliament by burning chairs outside the building. They held another protest on October 7.
Clashes between opposition MPs and the police and parliamentary guards erupted after the guards did not allow some opposition MPs to enter parliament, because they had been expelled for several weeks following the previous protest in parliament.
The DP said it had filed a criminal complaint over the alleged gun threat.
“The DP Parliamentary Group filed a criminal complaint with the Special Prosecution Against Corruption and Organized Crime, SPAK, against the Speaker of the Assembly, the Minister of the Interior, the Director General of the Police and the Director of the Police of Tirana after unidentified police … armed persons entered the Assembly and threatened the deputies with weapons,” the DP press announcement said.
During the clashes between opposition MPs and parliamentary guards, journalists were not allowed to enter the building.
“Both in this session and in other sessions held in another part of the yard [at parliament] …they did not allow us to go and film how the deputies entered, and did not even allow us to go where there was a clash with the deputies,” Esiona Konomi, a journalist based in Tirana, told BIRN.
She added that in such situations, where clashes take place, it is important to allow the media to film freely.
It is not the first time the opposition has staged protests in the parliament. Last year, after it asked for eight parliamentary investigative commissions, which were dismissed by the ruling Socialists, the opposition started protests that continued from October to March.
Opposition MPs set off flares in parliament and attempted to physically stop the legislature from functioning. The Socialists meanwhile started to hold online meetings to avoid physical clashes and ordered guards to block protesting opposition MPs from plenary sessions.
Copyright BIRN 2007