Prime Minister Edi Rama at the meeting with the heads of Tirana’s secondary schools

 

Thank you very much for being here, in this institution, which has been targeted and, indeed, subjected to a real assault with stones torn from the pavements of Rruga e Durrësit. It has been placed at the centre of attention for one reason alone: to conceal what truly lies at the poisoned source of this protest, to create the impression that this is a protest about education, that this is a student protest, and thereby to justify this entire wave of violence, which has nothing to do with school pupils or university students, but with a group of people drawn from all walks of life.

Naturally, among those who attack the police and keep the city under the pressure of terror, there are also students. There are students whose views have become radicalised, students who belong to emerging currents of political extremism. But neither students nor citizens exercising their right to protest are, or ever will be, the problem.

The right to protest is a constitutional freedom that cannot be denied to anyone. We are not talking here about exercising the constitutional right to protest. We are talking about the use of violence.

I have brought this stone with me again because, when you hold it in your hand and imagine the force it acquires when hurled at police officers, it is a weapon that can cause a tragedy. This stone is what clearly separates the two sides of this story. This stone defines where the right to protest ends and where the state’s right to respond begins: its right to protect its citizens, to protect those who want to go to work, those who want to go to school, those who want to raise their children in a safe environment, and to protect this country’s future.

Now, I want to say a few things to you and discuss them with you, because the necessary response of the State Police and law enforcement bodies, the prosecution service and the courts is, of course, one side of the coin.

The other side is everyday life at school. It is also the need to reflect on how, together, we can address the trauma of this younger generation growing up, some of whose girls and boys, at a very young age, are effectively becoming recruits for forces that have already penetrated Europe and are emerging with fire and iron in many European capitals and cities.

Our situation, however, is even more complicated. The hands that intervened here from the very beginning to exploit the expression of public discontent in June, discontent arising from a thousand and one reasons, in what was an entirely legitimate demonstration deserving of respect, are working together to exploit a moment, a vacuum, an opening that has emerged. They seek to hold back our country’s further progress, to destabilise a country that has been an exporter of stability in this part of Europe, in the Western Balkans, and to obstruct the process of negotiations with the EU.

I want to say that, when I saw yesterday’s footage of pupils vandalising Gjergj Fishta’s book, I felt nothing other than profound concern. That concern goes beyond the fact that a handful of teenagers were desecrating such a significant symbol of our country’s culture and history. To me, it means that they do not even know who Gjergj Fishta is.

This is a reason for all of us to reflect on this appalling ignorance, at a time when we are on a common front: teachers, school leaders, parents, educational institutions and society. We are on a common front to counteract the onslaught of images and messages that children receive every minute from TikTok and other platforms. They have now become part of a parallel life in which they believe they are making choices, when, in fact, the algorithm chooses and targets them, just like networks of drug dealers, continually drawing them into dependence on something that separates them from reality.

Thank God, the vast majority of pupils are doing well. But the risk that this other group, which is drifting away or has already become disconnected for any number of reasons, will continue to grow is real. It is a present danger that all of us must confront.

That is why, both during these days and beyond them, we all need to reflect together, drawing first and foremost on you and your experience. You are women and men with considerable teaching experience who now lead both teachers and your institutions. You know how to look at pre-university education and at every aspect of the school and institution you lead, both from your former perspective as an individual teacher within a team and from your perspective as a leader.

We have made a joint effort to improve the quality of school leadership. I believe you have also attended the School of Directors and entered a process of continuing professional development for school leaders.

Today, caring for those young souls who gather in the schoolyard every morning is becoming increasingly complex. They no longer come simply from home. They also come from those hidden realms of the digital mirror they carry with them, and our relationship with them becomes very complex.

For this reason, the minister, several level-headed advisers and I have also agreed on the idea that each of you should keep a diary of these days, in as much detail as possible, using a very simple narrative: what happened and how it happened.

The purpose is not to produce a document to submit to a law enforcement body, but to piece together a mosaic of events that we can revisit and reflect on once things have calmed down. It will help us understand how and where we need to intervene, whether in terms of security, in relation to individuals who have been observed being drawn into this scourge, or in response to any need to readjust school activities, not in terms of curricula, but in terms of social interaction.

Young people and children are gradually losing their sense of social connection. Their socialisation increasingly takes place in an artificial space, where they communicate in an entirely different way that excludes the very foundation of human relationships: empathy. It is the end of empathy and its replacement with something frightening, to the point where, suddenly and unexpectedly, the young child you see every day appears as a vandal, burning and destroying alongside a group of others.

Naturally, throughout this process and during these days, it is very important to speak with parents. We must speak with parents because we are facing an assault coming from every direction.

Even worse than the assault with stones is the assault by the media, by media outlets that have lined up on a common front in pursuit of entirely different interests. Not for better education, not for a better society, but for entirely different interests, interests linked, of course, to money, politics and power. There is a desperate urge to exploit this social discontent and turn it into fire and volleys of stones to bring down the government and force a change of power through violence.

That will never happen, in any form or for any reason. But it places a tremendous psychological burden on citizens. It creates the impression that the whole of Albania is burning, when this is, in fact, an attack taking place within a clearly defined perimeter, orchestrated by hands trained for this very purpose and fuelled with petrol, like a fire within the country, by foreign actors.

This is something that has now been recognised and is becoming a major issue throughout Europe, while citizens are presented with a constructed hybrid reality.

It is a hybrid war that, of course, works to this extent because it is based on real concerns, not fantasies. Concerns about the cost of living are certainly real. Concerns about a secure future, about housing, about opportunities to have more, and so on, are real.

And one of the points constantly driven home in this portrayal is that the police are assaulting protesters. The police are using disproportionate force. Our children are being assaulted, students are being assaulted, minors are being assaulted.

Now, I have brought with me a whole list of concrete examples of disproportionate force, or of what has been described as characteristic of disproportionate police force against protesters. There is one very simple, basic fact.

Where disproportionate force is used, the balance between the number of injured protesters and injured police officers naturally runs the other way: there are clearly far more injured protesters than injured police officers.

As we speak, I do not have the exact latest figure, because I want to be very precise, but we are approaching 200 police officers injured or wounded who have received hospital treatment, and around 80 injured or wounded protesters. Of those protesters, fewer than half are university students. The others are certainly young people, but they are neither university students nor school pupils. They are young people belonging to the so-called “fire group”, masked and paid, brought in from the outskirts to attack the police and create an atmosphere of terror.

So, we have nearly 200 police officers and around 80 protesters injured.

In France, during the violent protests of 2018 and 2019, there were 2,448 injured or wounded protesters and 1,797 injured police officers. In other words, far more protesters were injured than police officers.

In Romania in 2018, medical assistance was provided to 419 civilians, meaning protesters or passers-by, although here we are talking about protesters, and 33 gendarmes. Fifty-six civilians were treated in hospital, compared with just 14 gendarmes. That is disproportion.

In Georgia, during the mass protests that turned violent, 160 protesters were injured, compared with only 80 police officers. Again, far more protesters than police officers.

In South Africa, another protest turned violent and, tragically, there were also deaths. Again, compared with more than 100 protesters, of whom 34 were killed and the rest injured, only two police officers were killed and a dozen injured.

In Spain, 833 protesters were injured or wounded, while only 33 police officers received medical assistance.

In Germany, 130 demonstrators were injured or wounded, compared with only 34 police officers. I could continue with many other examples, but this is a list of instances of disproportionate force used by the police and the state against protesters.

There is a fundamental principle: “In a democracy, the state holds the monopoly on force.” This is set out in black and white. Only the state may use force, and it has the right to use it proportionately where the freedom of some crosses the line and infringes on the freedom of others. Where the rights of some cross the line and infringe on the rights of others, the state intervenes and exercises its monopoly on force.

No one else may use force in a democracy for any reason when the channels of dialogue are open. I have always said this, and I repeat it: whenever, and for whatever reason, someone seeks communication with me or with the government, we are there. We are ready. I am constantly communicating, including on my own phone, with people who write to me. I pass on every message I receive.

 

I am unconditionally willing to listen to anyone, anywhere, at any time. But with this stone, there is not only no chance of imposing any agenda or alternative idea; anyone who uses it has only two possibilities: either to escape thanks to a mask and a fast pair of legs, or to face the law and answer to society.

 

As I said yesterday, we are working intensively to prepare a package of measures, measures that are not merely criminal in nature, but administrative as well, because those who destroy must pay.

 

Anyone who damages someone else’s property, anyone who damages public property, anyone who tears up pavement slabs laid with this city’s taxpayers’ money, and anyone who forces the municipality and the government to divert funds planned for schools, kindergartens and nurseries towards repairs must have the state pursue them relentlessly, demanding full compensation for every single item of damage.

 

I do not know whether you have noticed, but, first of all, although in my view the court has left much to be desired, it has ruled all the arrests lawful. Every single one, meaning all the police detentions.

 

We have not had a single case in which the court has ruled otherwise. I repeat that it has left much to be desired at a moment when it should have shown, with courage, the full force of the law. But judges, too, are inhibited by the terror and the immense pressure exerted by this blind force. Nevertheless, they have ruled all police detentions lawful.

A considerable number of those detained were minors, for whom the court ordered parental supervision. Parental supervision is a concept provided for in the Criminal Code of the Republic of Albania. Parents have their own responsibility.

As the minister said, we are aware that, in certain circumstances, in families with a particular social background, parents also need help to understand what they are doing. But parents will not be exempt from this responsibility. Parents will have to share responsibility for paying for the damage their children cause.

It cannot simply be a case of: “They are a minor, so they bear no responsibility.”

I do not believe that the only response for minors is what Europe, the EU countries facing these attacks, is doing today: changing the approach to criminal responsibility and lowering the age at which it applies.

That is an option we will study. We are studying it, and we will consider whether we need to lower the age of criminal responsibility. As I said, a number of countries are doing so. But that is, once again, an instrument of the state’s coercive power. We also need the instrument of the state’s persistence in reaching out to people who have strayed from the path of the law and lost their way, and to the families of these children.

In addition, we are, of course, studying other countries’ experiences. It is time to answer the question of whether we should ban social media for children under the age of 16. I am convinced that we should, but the question is how we will implement it.

At the same time, we must consider how to address this whole mass of people who attack human lives and human dignity, who use social media to threaten, terrorise, insult, destroy reputations and rob families of their peace.

Thank you very much. Speak as much as possible with teachers during these days. Reassure them, because this was something we knew was coming. We knew it when, beneath the flamingos’ feathers, the hands that have now openly revealed themselves were also hiding. But, on the other hand, whatever challenges a state only makes it stronger.

It only makes it stronger. The State Police deserve everyone’s full respect and support because, as all the facts show, there has been absolutely no disproportionate use of force here. The facts show this, not the media manipulations of those who, to their shame, fill those screens with appearances and interviews as intellectuals, as this country’s boulevard elite.

On the contrary, the police have shown complete restraint. To stand under a hail of these stones and respond with water and tear gas, and then intervene only when remaining under that hail of stones becomes impossible and life-threatening, demonstrates dignity. And, of course, it demonstrates the strength to establish where the line is drawn.

Thank you very much.

I wish you well in your work, and I strongly urge you to keep that daily diary, because nothing that happens should be forgotten. Nor should we forget anyone we will subsequently need to work with through psychologists, anyone whose needs we will have to address through specific programmes, or anyone for whom we will need to consider how to make life after school richer and more focused on the challenges facing this generation.

Thank you very much, and my deepest respect to each and every one of you.