Police Officer Suspended as Protester Suffers Severe Eye Injury
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A member of the elite Shqiponjat police unit has been suspended after footage showed him beating a protester with a rubber baton. The suspension follows a chaotic demonstration in which 28-year-old Erjon Vishkulli was shot in the eye with a rubber bullet; he is being flown to Rome for emergency surgery to save his sight. Police reported that five of their own officers were injured by Molotov cocktails and stones during six hours of street battles.
Prime Minister Edi Rama has responded by setting up a table and chairs outside his office, inviting student leaders to a public dialogue they have so far refused. While the premier attempts symbolic diplomacy, the rhetoric elsewhere is less restrained: one academic told local media the state is at war with its own people and warned the country is on the verge of civil war.
The protests, which have now entered their fourth month, show little sign of dissipating as students prepare to return to the Ministry of Education this afternoon. Away from the capital, firefighters in Fier managed to contain a major gas cylinder leak in a residential neighborhood, preventing what officials described as a potential tragedy.