A Tirana court September 16, sentenced four Albanians to 12-18
months in prison for "founding a communist party and trying to
overthrow the government by violence." The four (Timoshenko
Pekmezi, 54; Sami Meta, 52; Tare Isufi, 73; and Kristaq Mosko, 45)
were arrested in February. The police used a car-bomb explosion in
Tirana as the excuse to arrest the four men but the authorities
admit that the charges have nothing to do with terrorism.
The trial judge Gjergj Pojani said the four were convicted
"not because of their beliefs and communist convictions but because
of their anti-constitutional activities." The perverted logic of
the judge is that communist beliefs and the communist party have
been banned in Albania since June 1992 by constitutional authority.
Therefore, communists are not tried for their beliefs but rather,
their beliefs and activities are in violation of the new
constitution that prohibits freedom of conscience and political
activity. The defendants allegedly had made organizational
preparations and collected propaganda material for the formation of
a communist party.
It goes without saying that a person with communist beliefs
will want to form a communist party; the communists' right to
conscience has no meaning without the right to form a party and put
into practice communist ideas.
Shawgi Tell
University at Buffalo
Graduate School of Education
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
