Tirana (Albania) (AFP) – Tens of thousands rallied on Saturday in the Albanian capital Tirana in the largest protest since a movement against a resort linked to US President Donald Trump’s family began. The 35th consecutive daily protest was the biggest since rallies started in late May against the planned construction of a luxury hotel linked to Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner in a nature reserve on the Balkan country’s coast, AFP reporters said. Opposition to the project has become a flashpoint for frustrations over perceived corruption, with protesters calling for Prime Minister Edi Rama to step down over what they describe as a lack of transparency.
The movement was dubbed the Flamingo Revolution as the pink birds migrate to a nature reserve where the project is planned. “What began as the ‘Flamingo Revolution’ has sparked widespread public discontent,” protester Alketa Ademi told AFP. “Lack of transparency, arrogance — enough is enough! The prime minister has to leave,” the 40-year-old said. Protesters say the estimated $4.6-billion luxury hotel development slated for construction in Zvernec poses a risk to the environment and to a nearby lagoon critical to migrating birds. Developers also hope to transform the uninhabited island of Sazan — once a secret communist military base — into a glitzy tourist destination.
The protests are held daily in Tirana, while on Thursday morning for a second time this week, demonstrators gathered outside parliament to confront lawmakers and block entry to the building. Police used tear gas, pepper spray, and water cannon to break up hundreds of demonstrators, some of whom tried to push through lines of officers, throwing eggs, stones, and other objects. Fifteen police officers were injured, while 25 demonstrators were detained, according to the police. The Albanian Helsinki Committee, a leading local rights group, earlier Saturday voiced “concern about the escalation of the situation” at the protest. “Individual violence cannot justify the disproportionate use of force” by the police, it said.
The police used tear gas without warning and unnecessary force including batons and punches against neutralized protesters on the ground, the watchdog warned, calling for a swift and independent investigation. Thursday’s violence was a marked contrast to the overwhelmingly peaceful daily gatherings that have drawn thousands to the streets since the movement began. “Free the boys,” the demonstrators chanted on Saturday evening, referring to 19 protesters still detained at a Tirana police station. They carried banners reading “Albania is not for sale” and “Revoke law on protected areas,” referring to the legislation that has allowed the government to fast-track the project.
Some protesters carried giant pink flamingos through the crowd that marched to the government headquarters on Tirana’s main boulevard. A group of demonstrators carried a large cake made of concrete, symbolically marking Rama’s birthday as the prime minister turns 62 on Saturday. A number of Albanians from the diaspora have returned to Tirana to join the demonstrations, including Xheku Shena from Canada. “We are not against foreign investment, we are for dignity, respect, and transparency, and against the current model that is harmful to the public interest,” she told AFP. The planned resort was first unveiled in 2024, but the latest wave of protests began after barbed-wire fencing and bulldozers appeared on beaches in late May.
© 2024 AFP
