JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
A pro-Russia leader was ousted from power this weekend in an election in Serbia. That's where a student-led movement has protested government corruption for nearly two years. South of Serbia, in Albania, violent anti-government protests in the capital of Tirana resulted in dozens of arrests and hundreds of injuries among police and young protesters.
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SUMMERS: Police shot rubber bullets and used tear gas to disperse protesters who were calling on Prime Minister Edi Rama to resign. NPR's Rob Schmitz reports from Tirana.
ROB SCHMITZ, BYLINE: Saturday evening's protests were some of the most violent yet since these daily protests began at the end of May.
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ROB SCHMITZ: Men dressed in black and donning masks aimed long tubes filled with fireworks, shooting them at police in riot gear. Police retaliated with rubber bullets, water cannons and tear gas. For nearly two weeks, these daily protests, which began in May as a protest against a luxury resort planned by President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner along a coastal ecological preserve, have become violent demonstrations against government corruption. Thirty-three-year-old protester Elsa Biya says Prime Minister Edi Rama needs to resign.
ELSA BIYA: We love our country, and I want to live here, and I want to live here with dignity and not as a - I can say - as a slave, you know? Because they are still in our country in every aspect - our water, our land. Our system is corrupted. Our government, let's say, it's functioned as a mafia. And we want a normal state, not a real state, let's say.
ROB SCHMITZ: Biya says the uptick in violence has given Rama's government carte blanche to use violent force against protesters. She says police have hit her with a stun grenade and shot her in the shoulder with a rubber bullet.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting in non-English language).
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UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting in non-English language).
ROB SCHMITZ: Sixty-six-year-old Sofia Katroshi has attended these protests for months. She says Albania is so corrupt that her daughter refuses to return from her life in England. Echoing many people here, she says the recent uptick in violence in these protests is justified.
SOFIA KATROSHI: (Speaking Albanian).
ROB SCHMITZ: "Edi Rama is not listening to us," she says. "Maybe he will now. If you don't have money in this country, you're nothing. There's only mafia here, and Edi Rama is leading it all."
In the past week, professional groups have joined the demonstrations against Rama, including doctors and professors. But Rama says he refuses to step down. He's offered cash bonuses to police who work on the frontlines of the protests, and he's had pillows and chairs set up outside his building to invite dialogue. But on Saturday night, amidst the chaos in Tirana, those offerings were set ablaze by angry protesters.
Rob Schmitz, NPR News, Tirana.
(SOUNDBITE OF BADBADNOTGOOD SONG, "MARKING MY TIME") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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