Albanian PM slams Iran over comments on Tirana protest

Prime Minister of Albania Edi Rama criticised Iran after the spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, Esmaeil Baqaei, shared a video of an ongoing protest in Tirana against a planned tourism development project in the Zvërnec area of southern Albania.

In a post on social media, Rama said Iranian authorities had effectively aligned themselves with the protest movement, which he claimed had evolved beyond environmental concerns into a campaign aimed at toppling the government, CE Report quotes ATA.

Full statement by Prime Minister Edi Rama on X:

Oh dear, you people are really shameless!

Thank you anyway for your concern about the intelligence of the Albanian people.

It would be far more convincing if it came from representatives of a regime that does not routinely hammer its own citizens through censorship, intimidation, internet shutdowns, and the suppression of dissent.

As for sovereignty, Albania does not take lessons on sovereignty from a government whose operatives were caught carrying out cyberattacks against Albanian public services and institutions, leading Albania to sever diplomatic relations with Iran.

You quote Albanian protesters chanting in the streets. Good. That is called democracy. In Albania, people are free to protest against their government, criticize their Prime Minister, demand justice, and call for elections without fear of imprisonment.

Can the same be said for the people you claim to speak for?

And it is particularly telling that you have suddenly discovered such a profound concern for protesters in Tirana while the blood of tens of thousands of your own people stains the conscience of your regime, while countless others continue to suffer persecution, repression, and imprisonment, and while dozens of millions remain trapped in conditions that belong more to the Middle Ages than to the twenty-first century.

The Albanian people are indeed intelligent enough to distinguish truth from falsehood. That is precisely why they can tell the difference between a democratic argument and propaganda. Your bots, your fake profiles, and your deepfake videos may add to the general digital confusion the venom of your hateful regime, but they will get nowhere, because whatever our differences might be among Albanians, we are all clear and united in the view that any type of regime that keeps its own people in darkness and poverty is the enemy of our way of living, disguised as concern. And yours is the worst, a terrorist state by definition.

Photo: Facebook/ediramaal