More than three decades after the fall of communism in Albania, only six percent of former political prisoners or their family members have received the full compensation they are entitled to.
On May 18, 1990, a few months before the fall of communism in Albania, Gjek Beci and his brother, Vati, attempted to escape to Yugoslavia by boat from the northern city of Shkodra. But Albanian border police opened fire on them.
"I was injured and my brother was killed on the shore," said Beci, who was sentenced to two years in prison.
The regime fell the following year and the new authorities began a compensation process for political prisoners like Beci; the scheme was expanded in 2007 to its current form.
Beci made his application after the original July 2009 deadline had already passed; his application was accepted, but he is still awaiting compensation for the time he spent in prison as punishment for trying to gain freedom.
Of the estimated 42,000 Albanians politically persecuted during communism, only six percent have received full compensation. The rest have received several installments or are awaiting the final amount, while two-thirds have not yet received a single penny, meaning the wait for justice risks lasting longer than the 1946-1991 dictatorship itself.
Et'hem Fezollari, a former internee and president of the Anti-Communist Association of Former Political Persecuted in Albania, accused the authorities of not making compensation payments even to those who applied within the two deadlines set by the state – July 2009 and December 2017.
Almost 77 percent of approved cases are still awaiting payment.
Of the 169 people who responded to an online questionnaire for this article, 70 said they had applied for compensation and received a response, but only 11 of them had been fully compensated.
In a 2023 report, the Supreme State Audit Office said that, at the current pace, the state's obligations to those politically persecuted during communism could be repaid "in approximately 29 years" - that is, by 2052.
Not even halfway there yet
According to Albania's Ministry of Finance, 52.6 billion lek, or about 539 million euros, have been allocated for compensation. By the end of 2024, less than half of this amount had been disbursed and only 19 percent of individuals with approved applications had received the full amount of compensation.
“Instead of serving as examples of reparation and justice, transitional justice reforms in Albania, such as compensation for political prisoners, have created new injustices,” said legal expert Bledar Abdurrahmani.
The Ministry of Justice says that 728 applications submitted as of July 1, 2009 are still “under review/verification,” while another 3,036 submitted as of December 2017 have not yet been reviewed at all.
About 10,355 applicants, or just over 76 percent of those who were approved for compensation, are still waiting for the money.
The daughter of a former political prisoner said she believed the state was "deliberately dragging out the process, in the hope that they would never have to pay."
“I am 63 years old, my mother is 90, my brothers are old, and we are still waiting,” wrote another respondent, the daughter of an executed political prisoner.
The Ministry of Finance blamed those who did not apply on time for the slow pace of payments, saying they caused delays "of three to four years."
Until October 1953, the communist regime of Enver Hoxha operated a number of barbed-wire concentration camps, but most of those imprisoned there have not been compensated, as the state has no archival evidence of their convictions.
“When will she receive compensation, when today she receives neither pension, nor housing, nothing,” Ilir Cullhaj wrote about his aunt, who was interned in the infamous Tepelena camp. Cullhaj himself was born in internees.
By law, a former internee in one of the barbed-wire camps is entitled to 1,000 lek, or 10.2 euros, for each day of internment. Those who were held in prisons or hospitals should receive 2,000 lek for each day they spent there.
Several thousand people are still awaiting government approval of a special pension scheme provided for in the 2007 compensation law.
"We have never been compensated, even though we have the status of persecuted," wrote Pjerin Alija, who was interned in a village with his parents, in the questionnaire.
Lack of funds or political will?
Experts have different opinions regarding the adequacy of the compensation fund.
“It is entirely feasible to allocate the remaining 270 million euros within three years,” said economist Pano Soko, citing an annual budget surplus of “around 500 million euros.” But, he lamented, “there is no political will.”
Arben Malaj, former Minister of Finance from the ruling Socialist Party, said that the funds allocated for compensation are "much more generous than in other countries and more than the Albanian taxpayer can afford."
But Zenel Drangu, who spent 17 years as a political prisoner, 15 of them in the notorious Spaç prison, and who now heads the Shkodra-based Association of the Imprisoned and Persecuted of Albania, said: “We are only getting our sweat and toil,” referring to infrastructure projects built with forced labor by prisoners.
Just over 60 percent of respondents to the questionnaire said that the compensation rates of 1,000 and 2,000 lek per day of internment or imprisonment do not reflect the hardships experienced by political prisoners in Albania.
“They lost years of their lives in prisons, labor camps, or internment,” wrote Ejona Keqi, the daughter of a former prisoner. “Their families faced discrimination, social exclusion, and economic hardship.”
Former Spaç prisoner Zaim Keqi, who was forced to work in the mines, called the compensation rates “ridiculous,” while Nestor Topencarov, imprisoned as a student, wrote: “There is no value that can give you back that part of your life that was stolen.”
Some complained that the government had deducted from their compensation securities or properties they had received before 2007.
"Those securities are no longer valid today, and the value of the compensatory apartments was calculated according to today's market price, when the general population received them almost for free," wrote Agron Hado, the son of a former prisoner, referring to the low prices of apartment privatization after the fall of communism.
Former internee Mihail Pumo said that compensation has "moral importance, for the sake of justice that we have not yet received."
Bureaucratic obstacles
About two-thirds of respondents said the compensation process was grueling, with many reporting difficulty in securing the necessary documentation.
The Authority for Information on Former State Security Documents (AIDSSH) has reported that out of 1,220 applications reviewed since 2017, “one in three had no archival documents.”
Some categories are completely excluded from the scheme, such as families of those executed before November 30, 1944, and political prisoners convicted of "terrorist acts."
“I found all the documents, then the law changed and we were expelled,” wrote Ndriçim Mehmeti, whose grandfather was executed in 1943.
Beci described the compensation process as "tragicomic".
For the loss of his brother, who was killed during the escape attempt, Beci is entitled to compensation equivalent to eight years in prison.
"It was a murderous state yesterday, now it's a mocking state."/BIRN/
