Albanian riot police used tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets to disperse protesters in Tirana on Saturday, after demonstrators gathered outside the education ministry at about 2 p.m. local time, threw stones at officers and set a fire at the door of the agriculture ministry, Reuters reported. The student-led demonstrations, driven by anger over perceived government corruption, a lack of jobs and poor education standards, have engulfed central Tirana and spread to other cities this month, and protesters demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Edi Rama have set fire to government buildings and banks, smashed shop windows and pulled up paving stones to throw at police. Reuters said the unrest, which followed months of largely peaceful summer protests against a luxury coastal development backed by Jared Kushner, poses the biggest challenge yet to Rama, who has governed since 2013 and won a fourth term in office last year.
More than 300 protesters and police were injured in the clashes and dozens of demonstrators were arrested, the authorities said, Al Jazeera reported, in what it called Tirana’s fiercest clashes in days. Rama, who has blamed foreign actors for the violence and accused Russia and Iran of driving online misinformation, had red cushions laid outside the government headquarters on Saturday as a symbolic offer of dialogue, and protesters later set the cushions on fire.