Proportionality applies on both sides of the police line

Saturday's protest in Tirana left behind two announcements that should be read together. Police reported six arrests, including two minors and a foreign national, and, for the first time since the protests began, according to Top Channel, the charge of “murder of a police officer,” in its attempted form. The Ombudsman called for a full review of the use of tear gas and water cannon by four special police vehicles, to establish whether it was necessary, lawful and proportionate.

Violence against police is unacceptable and no cause justifies it. According to police, officers were hit with Molotov cocktails, pyrotechnics, metal balls and bolts, and Molotov cocktails were seized from two of those arrested. Anyone who throws a bottle of flammable liquid at a person knows it can kill. The student protest has every right to continue, but it damages its own cause whenever such acts happen in its midst without a clear distancing.

Still, the gravest charge cannot become a collective label. Attempted murder requires prosecutors to prove, for each defendant, what he did and with what intent. The Tirana court showed on the same Sunday that measures are individual: it released protester O. Ç., arrested on Oct. 29, with an obligation to report and a ban on attending protests. The Ombudsman asks the same logic of the police: the force of the state is measured not by the anger of the moment but by necessity.

The Ombudsman's findings at police stations should not be ignored. Four adults held at Police Station No. 1 said they were passers-by who had not taken part in the protest, and the same station lacked an audiovisual system for recording interviews. That does not prove abuse, but it shows that without recordings even the police cannot defend themselves against allegations. Equally wrong is insulting the Ombudsman, Endrit Shabani, in a cafe in front of his parents: that is not criticism but pressure on an institution that needs to work calmly.

Our proposal: the State Police should publish within two weeks its report on the use of tear gas and water cannon on Oct. 31, with the relevant orders and times, and share it with the Ombudsman; every officer at protests should wear an identification number on the uniform, as the Ombudsman recommended; and prosecutors, when they bring an attempted-murder charge, should say publicly which specific acts it concerns. The law must be tough on violence and precise about evidence.