Kushner real estate project: thousands of protesters in the streets of Tirana

The protesters, many of whom wore t-shirts the same red as the Albanian flag, are denouncing the planned construction of luxury hotels in the protected reserve of Vjosa?Narta, about 150 kilometers southwest of Tirana, where many pink flamingos nest.

"Edi Rama [the socialist Prime Minister] - resign!", read the placards, some featuring a drawing of Edi Rama giving keys to Ivanka Trump.

Unveiled two years ago, the tourism project led by Jared Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump, the daughter of the American president, is surrounded by many unanswered questions, particularly regarding the acquisition of property titles for the land on which some of the hotels would be built.

Opposition to the project has intensified in recent days following the release of videos showing preparatory work on the coast and bulldozers on the beach. These images have been widely shared, particularly on Instagram, and viewed tens of thousands of times.

The protesters are demanding the repeal of the strategic investors law, which allows certain projects to be accelerated and from which investors in this program would have benefited, as well as the withdrawal of changes to the law on protected areas that would allow the construction of the hotel complex.

In the procession on Thursday, Luciana Kokaj, a human rights activist in her thirties, explained to AFP that she herself owned property in northern Albania which a "major investor" wanted to usurp from her with fake property titles.

"But that goes beyond my interest: it's about protecting Albania for our children," she said.

Nearby, Etleva Merko also came to protest the project. "We are not against the development of Albania" - which Prime Minister Edi Rama has accused the protesters of in recent days - "we are for development, we are for transparency, we are against construction in protected areas."

The specialized prosecutor's office against corruption and organized crime announced on Tuesday that it had opened investigations into the project without specifying exactly what they entailed.