'They abused her': Rama calls Protesters 'terrorists' while commenting on mother of autistic child

In a lengthy address to lawmakers and cabinet ministers, Prime Minister Edi Rama described protesters who have been calling for his resignation for more than seven weeks as "terrorists."

Referring to an incident involving police and a mother attending the protest with her autistic child, Rama said a communication gap and a lack of empathy had left people like her vulnerable to political exploitation. He argued that individuals he again referred to as "crows and ravens" had offered the mother what he described as hypocritical solidarity in order to draw her into the violent crowd.

The prime minister compared the incident to the tactics of terrorist organizations, saying they hide behind women and children while attacking law enforcement.

The accompanying account criticizes Rama's remarks, arguing that he has resorted to comparing citizens demanding his resignation over alleged corruption and theft to terrorists. It also claims that, rather than engaging in genuine reflection that could lead to his resignation, Rama is attempting to silence public anger through emotional speeches, portraying himself as a victim and making what it describes as baseless accusations against protesters who have spent nearly two months gathering outside his office chanting, "Rama, resign." The account further asserts that protesters attend the demonstrations voluntarily and are not being coerced.

Edi Rama: "You all saw it yesterday. That mother with the child on the autism spectrum, whom the crows had taken with them to Parliament so they could turn her into a victim of the police, who were there to protect the deputies from Albania's blind followers of violence. We have just doubled support for children with autism. We have also increased support for their mothers. But that is simply our fact, while that mother's personal experience is entirely different. She may not have been informed at all, or she may well have known that support for her son had been doubled. But she has never felt our empathy, there at the bottom of that gap between our facts and her experience of profound loneliness. And it was precisely there, at the bottom of that gap, that the crows and ravens extended the hand of their hypocritical solidarity to take her with them to Parliament. They exploited that mother and her autistic child using the same manual employed by terrorists when they exploit women and children, using them as shields while attacking the state police from behind masks. Then they put her in front of the cameras, they abused her themselves, paraded her in public, and pretended to sympathize with her. They turned her tears into a hailstorm through the algorithm..."