Speech of Prime Minister Edi Rama at the meeting with the State Police officers:

 

I have always been convinced that brutality is far less effective than beauty in front of everyone who is encouraged to misbehave in public. One evidence of this belief has been provided by all of you who are in the streets, in contact with all those citizens who were accustomed to bad parking and then lash out at the police.

This happens very little, not to say that it doesn’t happen at all, first of all thanks to the girls and women who have become the guardian angels to the order in the streets of the capital and other cities. A MP told me one day how he could not dispute a traffic fine he had to pay for bad parking, in front of two young women dressed in the police uniform. I was accustomed – he told me – to police officers who couldn’t even speak proper Albanian, and I would take advantage of this and tell them “go and learn how to speak, then you can ask me to pay the fine”. But in front of those girls I could not but keep my head down and pay my first fine.

Stories like this one are countless in terms of the new relation between the State Police and citizens. In these stories all of you, girls and women who work in the State Police play your unquestioned role. We started this with a State Police where less than 25% of the troops was educated, and more than 75 hadn’t had any education. In terms of the age of the officers, our State Police was the oldest in Europe and in the region where we live. A State Police that had shrunken and covered only 55% of the territory, whereas a large part of the offices were locked in their offices and populate the capital’s cafes. A State Police that was the image of abandonment by the state, and betrayed by the directors who would move around in this building with their political mandates which they used to actually feed the connections – which the State Police has the duty to dissolve – between politics and crime, between representatives of the people and the offenders of law, and those who disturb the public peace.

Today it’s not us but the surveys by the most prominent international organizations that say that the State Police is the most trusted institution in the country. Even more trusted than religious leaders. According to the latest EU survey. I want to emphasize this, in order to tell all those who are part of this troops today how much you have done in so little time. You who are here in this uniform, and keep every day, every hour, every minute the order and peace of citizens across the country, separated from many others who were in this uniform until yesterday, and went where they deserved to be, facing either criminal or administrative proceedings because they sullied this uniform. Although it is blue, this uniform is made also of the blood of all those who are not here anymore, because they fell in the line of duty wearing this uniform with honour.

The restored trust in the State Police can be viewed also by the amount of phone calls by the citizens to the police emergency numbers. They cannot be compared to the calls made in the previous years. The restored trust in the State Police can be viewed also by the fact that in these 3 years we have had the lowest average number of suicides in Albania, compared to those occurred in more than 20 years since the fall of the old regime. It can also be viewed by the fact that 7384 fugitives have been caught. A figure that cannot be compared to that of a very close past. It can be viewed by the more than 100 million-Euro-worth criminal assets seized, a hundredfold of the last year of the previous government.

The minister is very right to underline this as a very stubborn fact in front of the whole sludge river flowing against the State Police every day, where all sort of jesters with a mandate from the people, about whom they don’t care at all, address against the State Police a completely false accusation according to which “this is the police that goes after the poor and the weak, instead of going after the bully”.

But whose are those 100 million and more Euros of criminal assets? Of the poor’s? Of the weakest’s, or of those who were protected by this building until yesterday? What about those police officers who in front of their offers to accept bribes and turn a blind eye, and instead of accepting the bribes, handcuff those who offer them the bribes? It was unimaginable until three years ago!

It’s neither the poor not the weak who offer the bribes. It’s those who have been accustomed to buy and humiliate the State Police in the streets for many years. Where does this money, over 100 million Euros, which is a very significant amount for the budget of the Republic of Albania, come from? It comes from drugs, from the trafficking, from the contraband. Therefore, it is money that must be seized. It’s not like the money that until yesterday could find a way to be shared between crime and politics.

Whenever you feel falsely accused, do never forget a famous quote by Kant: “When someone accuses you of something you did not do, either he has done it himself, or he is able to do it himself”. Such is the accusation of the money of drugs and crime: either it is them who took it, or they are able to take it.

Over 100 million euros, money of drugs and crime, which have been seized by the Albanian state and thanks to the Albanian State Police, it’s 254% more than the money collected in the 8 years of the government of those who attack the State Police on a daily basis. Every day they organize conferences, speeches, attacks to the State Police.

The State Police has never been attacked in 26 years like it has been attacked in the last three years, and surprisingly it has never been in the line of duty, respecting the people and the institutions like in these 3 years! How come that an institution that has today the total trust of the people, compared to all the other institutions, it’s today the most attacked institution? There is a reason! And the reason is that it does its job, and its job is precisely to hit where until yesterday the pus that the world of crime produced in cooperation with politics was gathered.

This State Police has hit and will continue to hit even harder, also because it is being renewed in terms of its age, it is being renewed in terms of the mind, it is being renewed in terms of the morals, and in terms of all the senses that until yesterday were paralyzed or numb on purpose.

Rezi is a champion, not only in basketball but also in society, because she is the most meaningful expression of what talented and willing people can do for this country. Rezi has been here before. She did not join today the State Police, but she was betrayed, she was badly worn, she was ill-equipped and above all, together with her colleagues, she has been caught off guard in front of crime bosses more than once. Not due to their inability or unwillingness, but because of the calls made from this building to hinder the operations of the fantastic RENEA troops who found themselves in an environment similar to the premises where refugees coming from the sea are hosted, and there is nobody to welcome them. Yet they have fought like lions, unable to take back either the results they are now receiving more and more, or the moral and material assessment that the state owed them all. We will create very soon optimal conditions for RENEA, as the construction of their building is about to be completed. As soon as the building is ready, I will need just Rezi together with three others among you, to beat in a basketball game 5 men of RENEA’s. This is a promise, and Rez, we will keep it live on Facebook.

The list of the achievements of the State Police is very long, but for me it is a special pride that today there are 889 police girls and women with ranks. 11 of them have the rank of leaders. They are not girls and women who work in the office, but girls and women who face in the field crime and endless needs of citizens. 27 chief commissaries, 37 commissaries, 168 lieutenants and 684 inspectors, and many more will follow this path, and we will have even more girls and women leading the State Police. If it weren’t for the girls and women, MPs would continue to do bad parking and not pay the fines. It is thanks to these girls and women that today no MP would dare to do a bad parking because, as another MP told me: “Man, they’re at our heels”.

Once again, I’d like to rub salt in the wound. In the wound of justice, because it is a challenge to chase and arrest criminals, but it is a whole different sort of betray to see the criminals whom you have arrested based on evidence, be back in the streets and commit the crimes for which they were previously sentenced. Because state representatives in the courts are stronger than you. Hundreds and hundreds of serious crimes are repeated by criminals who have been arrested by the State Police and then released into the courtrooms by corrupt judges, for whom we need the Vetting, the only way to liberate the people and the State Police, as the force who protects the people from crime and disturbers of the peace, from the clutches of these killer who are today protected by the boycott of parliament.

Their time is running out, and their agony in duty is prolonged only by the boycott of parliament because, according to the reform schedule, now we should start the procedures for setting up committees that will vet the judges and prosecutors, and will clear the palace of justice from those judges who take out of the hands of police the criminals that commit murders again, rape again, take back in the territory of Albania those who traffic and benefit at the expense of the people.

It’s very easy to talk about battered women, it is very easy to talk about drug, crime and similar things. All this is a hypocrisy when you don’t say a word, but rather become a shield for the judges and prosecutors who send back home the reapers without any problem, so that they can rape other women, other families. And there are hundreds of similar cases.

How come that these judges continue still to this day, and then tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, in a week, in a month, in two months to issue judgements, while the Albanian people have a Constitution that now gives them the opportunity to wipe them off through their representatives in Parliament? How come that representatives of the Albanian people can abandon this front, which is today the most important front in the fight to make statehood and to do justice, by gathering the people in the tent and urging them “come and protect us from justice, and protect these judges and prosecutors from the Vetting!”?

We have a sincere respect for any average person who protests, but not for the organizers of a protest that boycotts the parliament, and who have an instrument to block the Vetting. Let them prove the contrary. Let them continue to protest, let them continue to boycott parliament, and let them take there just 3 people representing them and establish committees, so that the Albanian people through Parliament and with the Constitution in their hand can be saved from the clutches of these killer dressed in black who have been hitting with their gavels since 25 years the heads of the mothers of the victims, of the raped girls, and of all those who address to the courts to receive a property, but instead lose it and get hit by the gavel.

We are convinced that nobody can stop us on the path to make statehood. Not because of us, but because it is an aspiration of the Albanians, and the time has come to fulfil it. We are only an instrument in their hands, to make the state that has been missing for 25 years. And of course, you can make the police, you can make companies for the distribution of electricity meeting all the needs, you can make new schools, you can make new centres of health, you can do many things, but you cannot make statehood, if you don’t build a justice system that will make tremble all those who break the law, or who ever think to break the law, ranging from the president and the prime minister, to the average person.

Nobody can stop this aspiration. They may delay it, but they cannot hinder it – fear is the worst adviser, but it cannot stop it. I assure you that sooner than later, we will succeed that no criminal who has been arrested for the crime he has committed, will be set free and leave the courtroom without being judged at all, so that he can commit the same crime. This is a commitment that we have at heart, and we will keep it.

If I had today the honour to take with you a “Photo of the day”, I would be the happiest person for this day in this place.

Many thanks!