Albania: Police and LGBT Organization Against Violence

The State Police and the Alliance Against the Discrimination of LGBT people initiate the first steps towards the collaboration against the violence toward LGBT people.

 

On the 21st December, the Alliance Against the Discrimination of the LGBT people in cooperation with the State Police organized a training “On raising awareness regarding LGBT issues and the legal framework which defends the rights of the LGBT community”. There were present fifteen Chiefs of Sector and Specialists of the state police during this training. The situation of the LGBT community in Albania was discussed, further the criminal offenses that are most common towards the community through the cases reported to the Alliance Against the Discrimination of LGBT people were addressed, the profile of the perpetrator and of the people that are more predisposed to be victim of the violence and moreover the methods which the Police should use in order to handle such cases and these particular victims. Also in the training it was emphasized the need to include hate crime and hate speech in the Albanian legislation. The actions that the Ombudsman Mr. Igli Totozani undertook are also important; in his recommendation to the parliament he suggested the inclusion of the hate speech and the hate crime in the criminal code.

                                                 

Xheni Karaj the Executive Director of the Alliance against the Discrimination of the LGBT people, thanked the state police for the support shown during this last year, through the security provided on the events of the 17th of May, the International Day Against Homophobia and emphasized the importance of strengthening the collaboration with the state police in order to create a safe environment and an effective aid to the victims of the violence. She stressed that the lack of confidence towards the state institutions, the fear of the absence of confidentiality and fear of being discriminated against by the police officers themselves are some of the reasons which contribute to the fact that the LGBT community does not report cases of violence. As a consequence during this training it was given a significant importance to raising the awareness and the capacity, in order to cope with the discrimination that the LGBT community faces, but also in order to provide with information on how the police should treat cases of discrimination and how to deal in a respectful way with the victims of such crimes.

 

Benet Koka, Chief of the Sector for Investigation of the Open Crimes inTirana, expressed the availability of the state police into taking the adequate measures and to investigate on crimes committed towards LGTBT people. Moreover he expressed that some months ago, he dealt with the case of a mother that sent her son to the police station, after she found out that her son was gay and requested to the police officer to beat him up and hold him prisoner. In this case the police officers have been trying to calm the tension between the family members. Koka stressed the importance of the cooperation with LGBT organizations, especially in cases like this, in order to address the families to professionals, who know exactly how to deal with them.

 

Likewise during the training there was a session hold by Sanja Juras, Board Member of ILGA Europe, an International Organization on LGBTI, and Executive Director of the Croatian Organization “Kontra”. During this session it was introduced the positive experience regarding the implementation of the law that condemns hate crimes in Croatia. Moreover an exercise of three different cases that dealt with hate crimes in three different states of the region was held, and the state police had to solve it.