By Fadil Paçrami
The ninth part
Memorie.al / What is prison? It is the place where those who have been sentenced to deprivation of liberty are kept, we would say by reading any dictionary. But that is little. Prison and freedom – two opposites. Previously: what is freedom? In short: to be free means to do what you want, to think and act as you wish in the exercise and fulfillment of your freedoms and rights, as a person and as a citizen, but always without harming and violating others. . Again: to think and act. We are talking about democratic freedoms, from those of speech, press, assembly and organization in various parties and associations, ensuring the conditions where ideas, requests and human wills can find expression and concretization, from those of the biological-related plan with the being itself, to those of the social plan, related to the ways of living.
Continues from last issue
Regarding the measures for the improvement and democratization of the legislation, which were discussed in the X th Plenum of the Central Committee and in the last session of the People’s Assembly, excluded?
– Creation of the Ministry of Justice.
– Creation of the bar.
– Repeal of the decree on internments and deportations, as administrative measures, which at first glance seem concrete (how they will be and will happen in practice, this will be seen later), as well as others – those about some changes in the Criminal Code, for: – Creation of the rehabilitation institute or removal of punishment.
– Establishing the institution of early parole.
– Improving the provisions that refer to crimes against the state.
– The reduction of death sentences in the Criminal Code, from 34, to 11 cases, it seems clear that in these, there are many controversial and unclear things, as if for noise, but which do not bring substantial changes.
I am explaining myself: Reading the report presented on behalf of the Council of Ministers by Deputy Prime Minister Manush Myftiu, in the last session of the People’s Assembly, the following statements are distracting and cannot be passed over so easily:
– Our legislation of all levels has followed the line of development of society and responded to the demands of the time.
– The practice of our country shows that the educational role of society has been more effective and most of the people who have suffered have improved, work and behave well in society!
– Internment and expulsion, as administrative measures, have been imposed in our country, in certain circumstances and for their time, have served the protection and strengthening of the social order.
The truth is not like that. None of this holds, everything says the opposite. People know well how it was done. No one accepts these kinds of excuses. Let the truth be told! Time demands morality in politics as well.
If; “has responded to the demands of the time”, then we must say that even the liquidation of the Ministry of Justice, as well as the lawyer’s office, in the 60s, is a demand of the time! No, these measures when they were taken, were unjust, in the wake of all the others, one of their peaks, therefore it was corrected.
Also, one cannot talk about any kind of “educative role”, in the camps and prisons, no, no, – there was a state of terror and unparalleled mistreatments in them, enough to count how many died, went crazy, was killed and has gone as far as suicide, except for the sick. But, even after serving the sentence and leaving the prisons, they were surrounded by discrimination and isolation, which is difficult to express in words.
And that unconstitutional and above-legal super commission, of deportation-internment, has passed both as internees and as deportees, with thousands of others, including women and children. (It is known that when the parliament of the Ottoman Empire, in 1911, was presented with a draft law, according to which if a member of the family was part of one of the factions fighting at that time, for freedom and independence, to the family was exiled, it was not approved. It is also known that during the fascist Italian and German occupation, our families, including mine and yours, thousands of partisans, even our leaders of that time, were not exiled, nor did they suffer anything).
No, such measures have not “served the protection and strengthening of the social order”, but have seriously harmed them. I’m not going any further, that’s enough for the past. Let’s look now to the future, even though they are not separated from each other, they are connected between them, so I stopped at the above, to come to the following: The question arises: we are really entering the path of a legal state how do you speak Be that as it may, everyone wants and is waiting for this, big and small. As for being open, we are not yet. Even the measures that were deemed necessary to be taken, so truncated, speak for him.
We must be fair and accurate with others, even with ourselves, the truth must be told as it is. The notion of the legal state is something well-known; it relies on some defined criteria. This means establishing a fair relationship between the state and the individual: the state, as a set of legal norms and organisms that guarantee freedoms and human rights, while the individual as a free person, who acts on the basis of these norms.
This report, which realizes both in meaning and in practice, Rousseau’s “social contract”, between the state – as a legal commitment, and the individual – as a being with reason, from which arises the legal relationship between the state and the individual – the rights of the duties of the state administration, with all its organisms, as the factual element of order, and the rights and duties of the individual as a subject.
In this aspect, for these legal relations to be moral, the universal concept of human rights finds expression, in every time, place and society, so also in us. The “theorizations” that have been made and are made, lead, as they have, to the departure from the real principles of the present state and to the weakening of its positions. I said known things, but not to remember that these are not known, at least by intellectuals.
May 28, 1990
ON THE BRUSH OF THE TURN
These are three letters I sent: the first, on the eve of the events of December 1990; the second and the third, – on the eve of the elections of March 31, 1991. The last one, just 6 days before I was released from prison.
Pick up: Ramiz Alia
First Secretary of the Central Committee of the ALP.
I have followed and read carefully, both from time to time and a little more, what has been said and published about the democratization developments before and after the 12th Plenum of the Central Committee and the 8th session of the People’s Assembly, of course as far as they allow me the conditions in which I find myself.
I have written to you other times, but I don’t know if the letters I sent have reached you and what you called me. Well, that’s your job. I do mine. This time, I had some concerns, so I formulated them as much as I could, more succinctly, finding the following way in the form of questions, to present them. I don’t know if it is the most suitable and how much I will get?
I measured myself once, but then I said: why not send it to you? While there is talk of pluralism, gathering opinions from the most diverse, let’s go with these, first from a different point of view, freed from restrictions, dogmas and routine schemes, staying only in some of the issues, what I call the main one for now. That’s how I want you to take me.
If in anything I’ll seem rushed, extreme, it’s because I express myself more openly, which others have a hard time with – they don’t (or maybe they do and I don’t know). After this introduction, which I called necessary, I begin:
- Why didn’t you go to the meeting of the CSBE in Paris, the same as in Helsinki, 15 years ago, what were the conditions for participation there, both for others and for us (it is good to publish its main documents, as asked a few days ago a reader in “Voice of the People”); why does Albania not fulfill them, what does it not accept and why?
Well, since the Copenhagen meeting, when we attended for the first time as observers, there was enough time to take the measures and put them into practice, not half-and-half, as is happening, but completely; How can this be explained to the people, who ask why we were separated from all those who went (not only us, as a European country), the world today, which has no way of understanding us, and history tomorrow?
- In the XII Plenum of the Central Committee, regarding the policy followed for one of the most sensitive issues today – that of human rights, it was said: “This policy established the political status, equal for all citizens without racial differences , province, faith and nationality”, removing the word “idea”, as it was during the war and such after Liberation.
How should this be understood: confirmation of a fact, or even as an opinion that one can still walk, just the same, with restrictions and narrowings, like the previous ones, which have brought so much damage, and time has shown it?
- It is also said that; “The party has never been and will never be dogmatic.”
But how accurate is this, in the past, when it is known and has become clear, what the developments and democratizing measures of today speak about, in the whole life of the country, than the narrow view, the rigidity of thought, the lack of of debate and tolerance, have been accompanying diseases for more than four decades and never before has a war been waged against them, the opposite has been done, under the labels of one or the other “gogol”, such as: external danger, bourgeois-revisionist influences, liberalism, etc., giving all kinds of meanings and interpretations, according to the needs of the case.
- It is noted that; “we still pay tribute to the indictment” and this is repeated, if we don’t dwell on the causes, what has hindered and hinders?!
Why is the truth not spoken about that narrow and sectarian politics with the framework, based on biographical data, that has put and kept up to the highest leadership of the party and the state, ignorant people, who did not like them and they were afraid of the skilled, the people of knowledge, of culture and science (the press has started to say a few words, but only as facts, about down there), as well as for that closure and long isolation, which led to the consequences that we know, in different fields and directions?
- This time it was spoken more openly, that we also had mistaken, which is being talked about there – here, even in the press, but it is passed easily and with general words, even though the mentioned issues are serious, up to the theoretical level. Why are the consequences and damages not hit, even with a self-critical attitude, because that’s the only way they can be fixed and not repeated; why is it not said, even that for opinions expressed against them, there were victims, and what is thought of them now?
- It is mentioned from time to time, the speech of February 26, 1972 in Mat, in an article, is also called as the first edition of today’s processes, when it is known that it was immediately neutralized, by whom and why, this is known, and not even two months have passed , at the meeting of the Secretariat of the Central Committee on April 24, it was said differently; why is it not clarified that; after that, everything went in the opposite direction, in all directions, with the plenums that followed, leading to those serious consequences, already known, about which time spoke loudly and are still not being corrected?!
- It has been said, it was also said in the aforementioned plenum, that “pluralism of thought has been present in our lives in the past”!
But as long as it is known that it was not allowed, as much as it was not even used as a word before, (it is enough to see the press of the time for this), when even for any different opinion, opposite to the official one, it suffers badly, how it happened; I don’t know for whom these are said, why is it necessary and how much does it serve, while it is a matter of a new tradition, just started with the recent democratization processes?
- Regarding the country’s economy, it was said that; “it is on the verge of a state of emergency”, the newspapers also talk about; “decline in development rates”, for the reduction of investments”, “decrease in the social yield of national income”, “inflation phenomena”, etc., and these for 10-15 years – why does not stay with economic analysis, for to find the causes that led to these and others and how to get out of them, what is preventing, what measures are in the program and should they still be taken?!
- It is understood, sometimes openly and sometimes not, that the country and the people in our country are not so well-educated, prepared and mature, they do not even have traditions for debate, deep democratic processes, pluralism, etc., and the question arises: has it been more elevated in the 20s, or today? Then; why has it not been prepared, what has prevented it, when and how, will the baking be done, is it correct that there are no traditions, why not say that they have been restrained by the system, by the butts of the powerful (with the features and a certain oligarchy), who wore the suits of those who could, rode on the neck of the country, how did they even breathe?!
- It is noticeable that many issues that are dealt with today, related to the processes of democratization and emancipation of the entire life of the country – from human rights, the rule of law, reforms in economic-political-social structures, and so on, are truncated and with unclear wording, as Foto Çami did there before, when he spoke; “for employee human rights” and so on; or now that the end, at the conference of new talents in Korça, when he said that; “pluralism of thought is our alternative, to party pluralism”, that words are not followed by actions, or these remain on the way, so even people (within the country and beyond), who notice and understand them, ask: why did you want and how long will it go on with such fluctuations, even tricks, why are these still needed?!
- Why am I still kept in prison, when the time in progress has rejected the accusations made and proved the opposite, how does this agree with the processes of democratization and emancipation, which are talked about, do you think that this issue of political prisoners, it is a plus, in that they make many controversial, supposedly measures, related to the started processes, the myth of mistrust, who still enjoys it, what balances are required; can the expected steps be taken, with such heritage and remnants, from such a past and without the existing legalities, from which we want to break away with the establishment of the legal state and the processes of unstoppable and irreversible democratization ?
***
I could have others that beat telling the truth and making amends for what was wronged. There are people who have even more maybe. I don’t know if this letter will reach you, I don’t even know what you will call me, but I know that I may never find out, I also know that you will not answer me. But rest assured that I speak openly to you because I have every reason and right to think and worry about the country’s development issues.
No one can stop me from expressing them to you, as I am doing. In closing, I repeat that I have written to you once again: the relationship that must always be established between freedom, law and force, which constitutes the basis of a legal and democratic state.
Greater Kosovo, 26.11.1990
Pick up: Arben Puto
Chairman of the Forum for Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms
After thinking and beating the issue, I decided to write you this letter, regarding what I will list below.
Sorry for the bother. Why exactly you and why now?
– As a citizen, intellectual, creator and as a political prisoner, human rights and basic freedoms are dear to me. I was, I am, I value them and tend towards them (once, in 1973 and after, they called me liberalism, as you know);
– That I greeted the Forum of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in the first days, even though it immediately raised the issue of the release of political prisoners, I support its principles, goals and activity with conviction and faith, in the role that he can and will play for the democratization of the country’s life,
– After all, I have long and several times addressed the responsible state bodies, from the Supreme Court to the Presidium of the People’s Assembly, with the request for the protection of legality, for the unjust punishment and they have done nothing, I called it country, to address you and public opinion;
– That I am of the opinion that under these conditions, the release from prison and the return of the rights denied as a citizen and as a creator, can be achieved, not by the will of those in power today, but by the imposition that they will make on them democratic forces, their organizations and the action of the masses from below – let them judge and speak for the truth. Memorie.al
The next issue follows
