TIRANA, Nov 5 /ATA/ Prime Minister Edi Rama announced today that a new platform for communication and dialogue with citizens will be launched tomorrow.
Speaking at a press conference alongside European Union Ambassador Sofia Moreira de Sousa, who handed him the European Commission’s Progress Report, Rama said the platform would give students and all interested citizens the opportunity to address their concerns and issues directly to the government.
“Tomorrow, we will open another window on the screens of anyone who is interested – a window for dialogue. It will be a platform for dialogue offered to all those who need to interact with me or with the government on any issue they consider important. It will also be a platform for dialogue for students who are being threatened by pseudo-students appearing at lecture hall entrances and delivering violent messages to anyone who thinks differently, behaves differently or dares to take the first step towards dialogue,” Rama said.
Rama highlighted cases involving students who, according to him, had been threatened and intimidated by individuals he described as “pseudo-students” after expressing a desire to engage in dialogue with him.
The Prime Minister said that three groups of students had been prevented from meeting him through pressure and acts of violence, both online and in person. According to Rama, the students had requested a meeting without cameras, photographs or media presence, simply to have a conversation.
“Three groups of students have been forcibly turned away, both online and offline, by these so-called pseudo-students as they attempted to meet with me without cameras, photographs or a press release, simply to have a conversation. Three groups of students, identified by their full names, exposed and then subjected to extreme bullying,” he said.
Rama said that legal action would be taken against individuals who exert pressure, issue threats or engage in violence, stressing that the measures would include both criminal and administrative sanctions.
“One thing I want everyone to be clear about: I am no longer a student or a lecturer, but I come from a background in which I was both a student and a lecturer, and together with students I stood up against a real regime, not an imaginary one, for one reason only: to be free to say whatever I want, wherever I want. Anyone who thinks that fear, intimidation, threats or violence will have the slightest impact on me or on our journey has got their calculations completely wrong. On the contrary, they will face a response at every step, through legal means, just as they are already facing consequences one by one, both criminal and administrative,” he said.
Rama added that “those who raise their hands against the police and the state, as well as those who block roads simply because they feel like it, while disregarding the thousands and tens of thousands of other people in their city who have the right to move freely around it, exercise their freedom to do as they wish, say what they want, think what they want and go wherever they want”.
/m.q/r.e/a.f/sm/
