Amnesty International Report 1997 - Albania

An opposition leader continued to be held as a prisoner of conscience. At least 14 prisoners of conscience, including journalists and opposition activists, were sentenced to between four months' and 15 years' imprisonment. Several hundred others were detained, usually for less than 48 hours, for non-violent political activity. Some political prisoners were denied a fair trial. Hundreds of people were tortured or ill-treated by police. Eight men were sentenced to death; there were no executions. The ruling Democratic Party won an overwhelming majority in national elections in May. However, the main opposition parties claimed there had been major election fraud and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) criticized the conduct of the elections. In June, the OSCE suggested that new elections, "after a reasonable but limited period of time, under improved conditions and in the presence of international observers, would serve the interests of Albania." President Sali Berisha continued to assert that the elections had been free and fair. In October, Albania ratified the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Early in the year, more than 30 former senior communist officials, including former President Ramiz Alia, were detained for investigation on charges of "genocide" and "crimes against humanity". By the end of the year, 30 had been convicted, 10 of them in absentia, of "crimes against humanity" for their part in the administrative internment, under past communist rule, of relatives of imprisoned dissidents or of people who had fled the country illegally. The investigation of former President Alia and three others, suspected of responsibility for the killings of people who tried to flee the country in 1990 and 1991, and other crimes, continued. An opposition leader continued to be held as a prisoner of conscience. Fatos Nano, the leader of the main opposition party, the Socialist Party (SP), was arrested in 1993 and convicted in 1994 (see Amnesty International Reports 1995 and 1996). In December, his sentence was reduced by six months by presidential pardon, reportedly leaving him 18 months to serve. On 26 February, a bomb exploded in Tirana, the capital, killing four people and injuring 27 others. Later the same day, police arrested some 30 people, mostly journalists, at the offices of the independent newspaper Koha Jone, Our Time. All were released without charge within hours. Ylli Polovina, a freelance journalist, was also arrested on 26 February, but was detained until March, when Tirana district court convicted him of "incitement to violence", fined him and released him. The charge related to an article he had published three months earlier, in which he wrote about instability in the Balkans, and warned that corruption, "degraded politics" or a "peaceful putsch" might "explode" in Albania. The article did not appear in any way to incite violence. Other prisoners of conscience included four men from Saranda. They had been arrested in September 1995, and charged with distributing leaflets describing President Berisha as a "spy" and demanding "America out of Albania". In March, Saranda district court found all four guilty of "distributing anti-constitutional materials"; Sulejman Mekollari, who was also found guilty of attempting to recreate the banned Communist Party, was sentenced to four years' imprisonment and Lirim Veliu to two years' imprisonment. Dilaver Dauti was sentenced to 30 months' imprisonment, but following conviction escaped from house arrest and fled the country. A fourth defendant received a suspended prison sentence. In September, four men were convicted by Tirana district court of seeking to recreate the banned Communist Party: Sami Meta was sentenced to 30 months' imprisonment, Timoshenko Pekmezi to two years' imprisonment and the two other defendants to a year's imprisonment each. No evidence was produced in court to support the prosecution's claim that they had advocated the use of violence to achieve power. Sami Meta and Timoshenko Pekmezi were released at the end of December by presidential pardon. Idajet Beqiri, leader of an opposition party, the Party of National Unity (see Amnesty International Report 1994) was arrested in January. He was later charged, together with eight others – who had been senior communist officials – with "crimes against humanity". He was accused of having signed a proposal for the internment of four members of a family in 1985, when he was president of a district court. In September, the defendants were found guilty by Tirana district court. Idajet Beqiri was sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment. The charges against him, which he denied, appeared to be politically motivated, and serious violations of procedure undermined his right to a fair trial. Other prisoners of conscience included four Jehovah's Witnesses from Berat who were imprisoned for between four and six months under Article 16 of the Military Criminal Code for refusing on religious grounds to perform military service. There are no provisions allowing conscientious objectors to perform alternative civilian service in Albania. Exemption is granted only to men who pay the state the equivalent of US$4,000, a sum beyond the reach of most. Three other Jehovah's Witnesses were placed under house arrest pending trial for refusing on religious grounds to do military service. More than 20 men were arrested in October on suspicion of involvement in political killings, bombings and bank robberies. They included Klement Kolaneci, the son-in-law of Albania's former communist ruler, Enver Hoxha. On at least two occasions, in October and November, his lawyers complained that in violation of national law their access to him had been severely restricted. There were unconfirmed reports that the other defendants had also been denied unrestricted access to their lawyers. In the run-up to the elections, many of the several hundred opposition activists or supporters who were briefly detained by police were ill-treated. In many cases they were engaged, or suspected of being engaged, in peaceful activities such as attending party rallies, writing slogans or putting up party posters. Journalists writing for the opposition or independent press were also detained and beaten or threatened with legal proceedings. In February, Fatos Veliu, a journalist for Koha Jone, was physically assaulted and injured by the police chief in Saranda, after he had written an article critical of the local police. Also in February, Behar Toska, an unemployed former police officer, was arrested and severely beaten and injured by police in Tirana who accused him of having been paid by SP leaders to write anti-government slogans on walls. Police violence against the opposition culminated on 28 May, two days after the elections, when a demonstration in Tirana's main square in protest at alleged election fraud was violently dispersed. Police beat demonstrators, including opposition leaders, women and the elderly, as well as some bystanders and local and foreign journalists. Almost 100 people testified in writing about the ill-treatment they had suffered. Arben Imami, leader of the Democratic Alliance Party, was among some 20 opposition leaders who were arrested. He stated that he was beaten and kicked by state security police before being released later the same day. A medical report noted severe bruising to his head and body and a broken tooth. After the demonstration had been dispersed, Bardhok Lala, a journalist, was forced into a van by men who appear to have been state security officers and driven to a lake near Tirana, where he was forced to undress, beaten and subjected to a mock execution. His injuries were so severe that he had still not fully recovered by the end of the year and continued to receive treatment abroad. A parliamentary commission was later formed to investigate allegations of violence in connection with the elections, and the Tirana Prosecutor's Office started two investigations. By the end of the year, no police officer had been charged or tried in connection with the alleged ill-treatment, but the authorities stated that seven officers had been dismissed for "incompetence". There were also reports of cases in which police beat detainees in incidents which did not have a political context. For example, in September, Ismail Hoxha, a miner from Krasta, was severely beaten by police after an argument in a village bar. He was taken to hospital two days later in a coma with a fractured skull and subsequently underwent surgery in Tirana. Five men were sentenced to death for murder. Two of these sentences were commuted to imprisonment on appeal, as were death sentences imposed in May on three former communist officials convicted of "crimes against humanity". There were no executions. Amnesty International published two reports, Albania: detention and ill-treatment of government opponents – the elections of May 1996 in September, and Albania: A call for the release of prisoners of conscience in November. In these reports and in other appeals the organization called on the authorities to release prisoners of conscience and stressed its concern at the failure on the part of the government to bring to justice police officers responsible for ill-treating or torturing detainees. Amnesty International also called for political prisoners to be granted a fair trial.