Rama promises police bonuses and blames foreign agents for unrest
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A seventh day of protests has seen Tirana’s streets divided between burning barricades and police patrols. Prime Minister Edi Rama responded by offering a €2,500 reward to officers and a warning to the families of those in the streets: parents will be held financially liable for any vandalism committed by their children, and students who attack police will lose their scholarships.
The rhetoric from the prime ministry has sharpened alongside the tactics on the ground. Mr Rama now claims the unrest is being orchestrated by Russia and Iran, while the interior ministry declared that the fire set at a Tirana police station was a 'red line' that transformed a student protest into a criminal one. For their part, students say the police have begun a 'massacre' of arrests and physical beatings.
The sentiment in the provinces is less about foreign interference and more about domestic exhaustion. In Shkodra, young protesters simplified the national political choice by demanding that both Mr Rama and his rival, the opposition leader Sali Berisha, be sent to prison. In Vlorë, the administrator of Shushica found his car destroyed by explosives, a reminder that the capital is not the only place where the temperature is rising.