Hundreds of Albanians have demonstrated to protest against parliament’s decision to destroy a museum dedicated to the late Stalinist Enver Hoxha, one of the most emblematic buildings of the capital, Tirana.
Local media reported today that the protesters gathered last night at the museum doors, called the Pyramid, built in 1988 to glorify the cult of Hoxha, who died in 1985.
Over the past 20 years of democracy, the building has operated as a nightclub, cultural center, exhibition center and home to a local television station.
The protest was organized by intellectuals, writers and architects grouped in the civic movement “Action for the salvation of the Pyramid”.
Organizers began signing a petition calling for a referendum of citizens and against the demolition of the building, declared a cultural monument and located in the historic center of the capital.
The decision on Their Destruction was taken last 14 days the votes of 72 of the 140 deputies of the ruling Democratic Party and the absence of the deputies of the opposition Socialists, who have left the Parliament to protest electoral fraud to ensure the occurred in the 2009 elections.
“It can not be the center of Tirana is obscured by the pyramid built to perpetuate the memory of the ferocious dictator and postwar Europe,” said Prime Minister Sali Berisha.
The controversy is compounded by the plan to build a new building for the Parliament on the site free to stop the demolition of the pyramid, a project whose cost is not known but the means estimated at 110 million euros, an amount that would be donated Saudi Arabia.
The new building is intended to serve to celebrate 100 years of the country’s independence from Ottoman rule, which will meet next year.
Albania, one of the poorest countries in Europe, has already invested five million euros in the Pyramid transform into a theater and another 500,000 euros to renovate the current Parliament, before deciding to build the new headquarters. Saudi Arabia paid the new work as a favor to the burgeoning Muslim community.
The Espresso Stalinist 