Massive protests driven by collapsing educational conditions, soaring tuition fees, and the spiraling cost of living have swept across Albania, escalating into widespread civil unrest. What began as university student rallies in Tirana has swiftly metastasized into an all-out anti-establishment movement demanding the immediate resignation of Prime Minister Edi Rama. The friction has rapidly spread beyond the capital, engulfing Shkodër, Korçë, and several southern coastal hubs.
In Tirana, scenes of chaos played out as protesters erected makeshift barricades, hurled stones at official structures, smashed storefronts, and set trash containers ablaze. The Albanian regime's police forces retaliated aggressively, deploying water cannons and tear gas against the crowds. Violence also flared in Shkodër, where municipal buildings and political offices were pelted with projectiles, while in Korçë, public thoroughfares were paralyzed by blockades.
Albania’s health ministry confirmed that at least 89 people received hospital treatment, including 61 injured police personnel. Regime security forces have detained more than 75 citizens, accusing them of violent assaults against personnel and public property. Frustration runs deep among citizens who allege systemic abandonment, unchecked inflation, and deteriorating social infrastructure under the NATO-member state's leadership.
Confronting escalating calls to step down, Prime Minister Edi Rama has attempted to deflect criticism. Releasing footage from a scorched campus office in Tirana, Rama purportedly questioned whether students were behind the destruction, casting blame entirely onto rival political factions for orchestrating the violence—a claim critics describe as an evasion of regime accountability.
The underlying public anger has also been fueled by contentious real estate developments on Albania's protected coastal lands, in motion since late spring. Reports highlight that a controversial luxury resort project is linked to Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, and her husband Jared Kushner. Opponents fiercely condemn the Tirana regime's lack of transparency, accusing it of enabling elite cronyism and rampant corruption at the expense of ordinary citizens.
Source: kun.uz