In the plenary session where SPAK leader Altin Dumani reported, Socialist MP Fatmir Xhafaj focused on the right to the presumption of innocence and more proportionate security measures for defendants. He spoke about Albania's "exceeding EU standards" in the number of people in detention and the "need for justice not to be judged in public."
These words would carry weight in a normal context, if they came from a politics built on respect for human rights for all. But when they come from a majority that once used handcuffs as a propaganda symbol, they sound like belated – and self-serving – caution.
In 2015, the government launched a campaign against “electricity theft.” Hundreds of ordinary citizens were arrested, many for unpaid bills or minor illegal connections. They were held in cells, labeled as thieves, and publicly condemned by the same politicians who today demand “proportional measures.” Not a single voice from the Socialist Party spoke up for their rights, for human dignity, or for the disproportion between guilt and punishment.
Today, when former ministers, directors and mayors of the government are in custody, suddenly the word “human rights” has become a banner. Socialists demand better conditions, dignity in the investigation, respect from the prosecution, caution in publications.
So, we have two categories of rights: those of ordinary citizens, who suffer in silence, and those of socialists, who demand special treatment as soon as they are faced with the same system they themselves built.
In essence, this is the clearest definition of political hypocrisy. Because human rights are not a privilege for those in power, but a shield for the defenseless. And a state that recognizes them only for "its own" denies them to everyone.
