Were women sentenced?

Albanian communist state did not sentence only men, but also women and even children were condemned from birth and grew up in internment camps. Dozens of women during communism were arrested with the charges and  propaganda and were nicknamed public enemy.

Which women were considered “Enemies of the Nation”?

Educated women who represented the opposition were sentenced.

Musine Kokalari. It was the year 1943, when Musine Kokalari together with some other friends founded the Social-Democratic Party. A year later, thanks to her effort the first edition of the newspaper “Voice of Freedom” was released. She was arrested by the State forces and was sentenced with 20 years of prison by the court. In 1961, she got out from prison and was deported to Rreshen, where she retired at half pay. In 1981, she was struck from cancer, and two years later died.

Musineja writes: “ The Communists buried me alive … I did not apologize in court for my activity. And for what reason should ask for forgiveness? …. I was not guilty … “

Women who refused to become atheist or communist ideas were punished, teachers, high school students and professors were sentenced accused for propaganda.

Sabiha Kasimati is one of the women from the Institute of Nature in Tirana who was executed. Dr. Sabiha Kasimati was the zoology sector chief. For ten years she studied the aquatic fauna, where she classified the Albanian aquatic fauna preparing the voluminous monograph “Fishes of Albania” which could not be published. The public denouncement she had made to Enver Hoxha, was not forgotten. She was arrested in February 22, 1951, with 81 other anticommunist intellectuals and were accused for plotting the bomb attack in the Soviet Embassy. They were sentenced and without trail, four days later, she was executed.

She was the only woman among 22 accused which was executed.

Women victims of their husbands!

Meanwhile thousands of other women were persecuted because their husbands they were sent to the political prison, or suffered in internment camps. In the trial of the swamp of Maliq 16 members were considered as saboteurs and suffered a tragic fate, a pregnant women too, she the wife of the engineer Vasil Mano, Zyraka Mano an economist, and the dictatorship murdered her while she was pregnant.

The State Party sentenced communist women too. Girls who were raised in the block of the leaders. They were interned, punished, were separated from their husbands and forced to raise their children in internment camps.

During the communist terror in Albania

91 women were executed by a firing squad

445 were imprisoned

7 died in prison

35 were treated in psychiatry

9322 were interned from all over the country