“Drustvo Prespa” from Tirana: The Albanian Government legitimizes a census forgery for Macedonians, allowing gross interference of Bulgaria in internal affairs

“Drustvo Prespa” from Tirana: The Albanian Government legitimizes a census forgery for Macedonians, allowing gross interference of Bulgaria in internal affairs.

The organization for the protection of the rights of Macedonians in Albania “Drustvo Prespa”, announced today that as the oldest Macedonian organization in Albania, established in 1991, it rejects the preliminary census results in Albania from last year’s census held from September 18 to October 30, then extended to 16 November, about the number of Macedonians and “Bulgarians” and considers them a gross census forgery.

Drustvo Prespa expresses concern over the announcement by the Institute for Statistics of Albania (INSTAT) that 2,281 “North Macedonians” live in Albania, although 5,512 Macedonians were registered in the 2011 census (even then acceptable). We remind you that we are not talking about settlers in Albania from the state of “Northern Macedonia”, which, contrary to international law, has existed under that name since January 11, 2019 according to the Dimitrov-Kozias Agreement of June 17, 2018, but about the indigenous Macedonian population that for centuries he lives in his own homes and in his native territory, stands in the reaction of the Society.

As they state, they consider the published number of 7,957 “Bulgarians” in Albania to be a gross census forgery, more than the census in Macedonia in 2021 – 3,504. They persist in the claim that “there are no “ethnic Bulgarians” in Albania, in any census from 1912 to 2023, there is not even one “Bulgarian” in the entire territory of Albania.”

At the same time, the Society sends a protest to the President, the Parliament and the Government of Albania, because, as they point out, they succumbed to the Bulgarian threats regarding the accession of Albania to the European Union, if Tirana does not write “Bulgarians” in the Law on National Minorities and if it does not declare ” Bulgarians” in the last population census.

From Drustvo Prespa with sharp criticism towards the municipal administration of Pustec, whose mayor, it is further stated, in the last and current mandate was servile to Bulgarian propaganda and numerous visits of Bulgarian representatives with material aid for the municipality of Pustec, although it was known that Sofia he does only to present the Macedonians as Bulgarians in Albania.

The Prespa Society considers the reaction of the only Macedonian party in Albania – Macedonian Alliance for European Integration, which, as part of the coalition of the municipal government, participates with its employees in the municipal administration and advisers in most events with the “Bulgarians” as inappropriate. Pustec Municipality Council: Namely, they did not prevent the mayor from receiving guests from the Bulgarian Embassy in Tirana, the Bulgarian Foundation “Bulgarian Memory” and the government in Sofia and accepting material aid for the municipality, although it was known that Bulgaria was doing this to show before the world that the Macedonians in Pustec are “Bulgarians”.

In the reaction of the Society, the European Union is requested to take measures against the Republic of Bulgaria, which, it is stated, is manipulating the Macedonians in the Balkan states, giving them Bulgarian passports as an opportunity for emigration to Western Europe due to the poverty in Albania, on the condition that they sign a written statement that are “Bulgarians by origin”.

Drustvo Prespa announces that it will organize an informal census of Macedonians in Albania, as the Greek community in Albania did recently, and asks the authorities in the country to protest the census falsification. The representative of the Macedonian embassy in Tirana, Ljuftim Spahiu, and the member of the Committee for minorities, Marjana Kosotofski, yesterday at the presentation of the census results from INSTAT, they demonstratively left the hall after they were not given an answer to the question why the review on the number of minorities for everyone says what they are, only for Macedonian the name of the state Northern Macedonia , in Albanian and “Severno Macedonians” in English.