Student protests over education costs and social inequality in Albania turned violent on Tuesday, as demonstrators in Tirana hurled bricks and concrete blocks at the Education Ministry and the police answered with tear gas and water cannon.
Hundreds of students joined the march in the capital, and the confrontation spread into nearby streets after security forces moved in, Al Jazeera reported. Police detained several protesters. How many were injured, if any, was not clear.
Student organizers said the nationwide protest grew out of deteriorating conditions at the country’s universities, high education costs and limited financial support, along with bleak employment prospects after graduation. Some demonstrators also voiced anger at widening inequality and a political system they see as failing the young.
“What Albania needs is a revolution, a change, a complete overthrow of the system because it can’t go on like this,” one protester, Luljeta Kola, said. She described what she called “deep social injustice” and a growing gulf between rich and poor.
The government condemned the unrest. “Violence has not been, is not, and will never be a solution,” Deputy Prime Minister Albana Kociu wrote on Facebook. She offered no concessions in her post.
The demonstration in Tirana lands in the middle of a broader wave of student activism across Europe. In France, high school students have held weeks of protests and blockades.