A 20 February 1991 AP report states that:

Anti-Communist demonstrators in two cities toppled Hoxha statues Wednesday, unleashing decades of pent-up wrath against the late dictator.

Police, some with dogs, at first fired in the air in an attempt to keep thousands of people from a 30-foot-tall bronze statue that dominated Skanderbeg Square in the center of Albania's capital, Tirana, state television showed.

But then the police began to embrace people in the jubilant pro-democracy protest, television and witnesses said.

The statues toppled in Tirana and the port city of Durres symbolized decades of cruel repression and poverty for many in the isolated Balkan nation of 3.2 million.

A February 1991 Keesing's Record of World Events news digest report states that:

Student's at Tirana's Enver Hoxha University began boycotting classes on February 6 to press demands for improvements to their accommodation, for an end to compulsory study of Marxist theory and the history of the ruling Party of Labour (PLA), and for a change in the university's name. By Feb. 9 sympathy strikes had broken out at higher education establishments in several cities. The protests were stepped up on Feb. 18 when over 700 Enver Hoxha University students and lecturers started a hunger strike.

On Feb. 20 thousands of people rallied at the university campus in the support of the hunger strikers. Police fired warning shots over the heads of the demonstrators to disperse them, but this angered the crowd, and several thousand people marched on Skanderbeg Square. Amid chants of "Hoxha-Hitleri", Hoxha's statue was pulled down, and there were clashes with police in which up to 20 people were injured according to opposition sources, although eyewitness reports said also that some members of the security forces had gone over to the side of the demonstrators. Later large concentrations of police backed up by tanks appeared on the streets...

In response to the events in Skanderbeg Square, [President Ramiz] Alia announced in a statement broadcast on the evening of Feb. 20 that he had decided to assume the "direction of affairs of state" himself, and to form a Presidential Council and a new government... (38016).

No information on the Democratic Party's (DP) involvement in the 20 February 1991 demonstration and on a DP demonstration held in May 1999 in Tirana could be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate.

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum. Please find below the list of additional sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

Associated Press (AP). 20 February 1991. "Albanian President Promises New Government, Meets Opposition Leaders." (NEXIS)

Keesing's Record of World Events [Cambridge]. February 1991. "Albania: Renewed Unrest - President's Rule."

IRB databases

Resource Centre Country Files: Albania

Internet sites including:

Albanian Telegraphic Agency (ATA). Archives 1-2 May 1999

Country Reports 1999

World News Connection (WNC)