 |
| Edi Rama in a speech in Himare, archive |
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has condemned a protest held in the southern Albanian city of Himara in support of an ethnic Greek who was elected mayor of the city two days after his arrest on suspicion of vote buying.
The mayors of Athens and Thessaloniki joined supporters of Fredi Beleri in Himara on Monday to protest his arrest on May 12.
Despite being in pretrial detention, Beleri won the mayoral election on May 14 in Himara, defeating the incumbent mayor Jorgo Goro of Rama's Socialist Party.
A number of high-ranking Greek government officials have called for Beleri's release. In a lengthy Facebook post, Rama expressed opposition to Athens' interference.
"In my memory, there is no other case where the elected officials of one democratic state organize a protest in another democratic state against the authorities of that state," he wrote.
"Not only that, but they appear as protesters against the decisions of the respective courts of the state in which they are protesting, absolutizing the ethnic affiliation of the protesting subject over any legal norm, legal standard, and democratic logic."
"Does Greek nationality give the Albanian citizen accused by SPAK [Special Prosecution Office against Corruption and Organized Crime] and held in pretrial detention by the country's courts a different status from 48 other Albanian citizens with Albanian nationality, including some mayors of my party, who are now under pretrial detention with accusations from the same body, with identical decisions from the same courts?!" Rama wrote.