Socialist Party MP Fatmir Xhafaj has reacted to the situation in Tirana, condemning acts of violence and the damage to public institutions, private property and businesses. In a public statement, Xhafaj says he is saddened and concerned about the situation in the capital, stressing that violence and destruction cannot be considered legitimate forms of protest. “Violence is not protest, nor is the destruction of our common home, it is not a solution”, the socialist deputy emphasizes, condemning every attack on public institutions, citizens’ property and businesses in Tirana.
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As a citizen, as a parent, as a deputy for the Tirana constituency, I am deeply saddened and concerned by this state of anarchy that has gripped our city! Violence is not protest, nor is the destruction of our common home, it is not a solution. I strongly condemn every attack on public institutions, citizens’ property and businesses in Tirana.
Flames and chaos are not an expression of freedom, nor an exercise of the constitutional right to protest. Albania has paid dearly for the times when violence replaced reason, when flames covered arguments and when destruction was presented as change. If the young people who are out on the streets today have not seen or experienced those dark times, their parents have the duty to tell them.
We have no reason to go back, to those dark times from which we fought to emerge at such great sacrifice, and which have brought us so close to EU membership today with such great effort. Every citizen has the right to protest, to oppose and to demand accountability. But no one has the right to use protest as an alibi for violence, vandalism and endangering the lives of others, including State Police officers. Albania needs voices that build, not hands that destroy, nor the kind of politicians without shame or conscience who throw the stone and hide the hand, using students as cannon fodder.
We must not allow citizens’ concern and the aspirations of youth for a better life to be exploited by the masks of chaos, the ambition for power and interests that seek to destabilize our country! A debate that brings solutions is welcome and should be conducted by all of us with great maturity and deep reflection, but we do not need the flames that burn the future. Albania is our common home, and no one wins when it burns!