Albania's student protests are only getting bigger

The fallout from the October 13 protests was still visible when students and faculty from the University of Tirana gathered outside the Education Ministry in Albania's capital on Tuesday to express their continued discontent. Smashed windows have yet to be replaced; the walls are still black with soot from fires that broke out during the protests.

Albania has seen nearly five months of peaceful anti-government protests, sparked initially when plans were made public that Jared Kushner — a son-in-law of US President Donald Trump — and associates intended to build a luxury hotel complex within a nature reserve.

Since then, anti-government and anti-corruption protests have escalated. Now, college and high school students clash with police forces almost daily, with the fiercest clashes so far occurring last week.

Protesters denounce corruption, mismanaged universities and the rising cost of education in Albania — and call for the resignation of Prime Minister Edi Rama, who has been in office since 2013.

Wearing a black hooded jacket and a scarf across her face to conceal her identity, a woman who asked to be called Sara because she fears repercussions for speaking to the press told DW that protesters "communicate via text messages — that's the only way."

She cut the interview short as some protesters began flinging stones at the Education Ministry. Police pushed demonstrators and journalists out of the way, using water cannons to disperse the crowd.

"Social media is the most important public space today — more so than physical spaces," Besmir Semanaj, a prominent Albanian cybersecurity advocate told DW. "Young Albanians no longer organize through traditional structures such as political parties, associations or public appeals. Instead, they organize themselves where they spend much of their daily lives: on their cellphones."

"The most important communication channels include Instagram, WhatsApp groups for academic-year cohorts, departments and dormitories, Telegram channels for general announcements, and TikTok for sharing videos," Semanaj said. He added that people who are especially concerned with security use the Signal messaging app.

"This is a horizontal organizational structure, without individual 'leaders' and without a central command structure," Semanaj said. "That is exactly why the government is having such a hard time understanding and controlling the situation."

Semanaj said the Telegram messenger app had proven particularly useful for protesters. "Telegram channels allow you to reach tens of thousands of people at once," he said. "Notifications are sent out within seconds, and external control is more difficult to establish than on traditional platforms."

Rama: 'Hybrid war'

Rama has called the youth uprising a "hybrid war." He said protesters thought they could "make Albania a better country through TikTok and without even being able to string together more than seven coherent words." Though not all are terrorists, he said, he believes that "they are hostages to a certain mindset, a new ideology that has only one goal: to destroy, to turn everything upside down, to raze everything to the ground."

Over nearly five months, Rama has accused various "true" masterminds of organizing the anti-government and anti-corruption protests. He has alleged that the governments of Greece, Russia and Iran are stirring up dissent.

Most recently, Rama said it was "antifa" — or a decentralized movement of global antifascists — that had stoked anti-government and anti-corruption sentiments in Albania. "These are young people who have been radicalized and ideologically indoctrinated and who are acting under the pressure or influence of a new, dark force that has emerged in Europe and the United States, a force that the President of the United States has designated as a terrorist organization: Antifa," Rama claimed.

Redion Qirjazi, a security affairs researcher who focuses on violence prevention and conflict resolution, told DW that Rama's claim was not likely to prove true. "That is a serious accusation — one that requires equally compelling evidence," Qirjazi said. "To date, no verifiable evidence has been presented to prove the existence of an organized Antifa structure in Albania, let alone its involvement in coordinating the protests."

Qirjazi said Rama's reference to Trump's calling antifa a terror group was problematic. "Antifa is not a unified international organization with a centralized structure or leadership," he said, "but rather an umbrella term for various movements and groups united by the fact that they are, at their core, anti-fascist."

Sara said she rejected the "terrorist" label that Rama had attempted to slap on her and her fellow protesters. "There are groups that are willing to use violence — that's true — but I have nothing to do with them," she said. "As soon as I see violence, I walk away; I'm against it."

Is Rama deflecting?

Arlind Qori, the chairman of the Together Movement, a social-democratic opposition party with just one seat in Albania's parliament, said youths had taken to the streets out of dissatisfaction with the status quo rather than any particular ideology. "Young Albanians are outraged by the current socioeconomic conditions: the poverty, the fact that many of their parents have emigrated because they couldn't support their families, the decline of the education system, the lack of postgraduation prospects," Qori said. The students' central demand is for Rama to resign, he added  "not a socialist revolution."

"People aren't demanding anything radical," Qori said. "They merely want a corrupt head of government to resign — that's a fundamental and moderate demand. But Edi Rama continues to meet this demand with police violence and arrogance."

Qirjazi said Rama's allegations of foreign interference could be a strategy. "When a government faces protests and public discontent, linking demonstrators to extremism and foreign influence may serve to divert attention away from the actual causes and toward a national security narrative," he said.

"This can serve several political purposes: to delegitimize the protesters, to weaken their support among the public, and to justify a tougher crackdown in the name of law and order," Qirjazi said.

Semanaj said this was a common pattern in governments' efforts to dismiss dissent. "Protests are portrayed as acts of violence," he said. "Young people are cast as manipulated, and their legitimate concerns — conditions at universities, tuition fees, corruption and a lack of prospects — vanish from the news agenda."

This article was translated from German.