AN IRISHMAN'S DIARY

I WRITE to plead for the lives of two who have been condemned to death for having left one religion for another

I WRITE to plead for the lives of two who have been condemned to death for having left one religion for another. I write in the hope that others will contact the authorities concerned seeking their pardon and release from prison. Should my plea, and those of others, arrive tool late, the campaign should continue so that there be no repetition.

The persons thus condemned are Dhabihullah Mahrami and Musa Talibi, who left Islam for the Baha'i faith in the Islamic Republic of Iran. They face execution despite Iran's signing of international agreements allowing freedom of religion.

In contrast to this terrible threat I am reminded of my own experiences, very happy ones, among the people of Islam in the Maghreb, Morrocco, Tunisia, and Algeria, in the North Africa of the lates 1940s. Tangier was an international city. The rest of Morocco was divided into the French and Spanish zones.

International City

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As a journalist I interviewed many of those soon to reach political power in the Maghreb, including Alal Fassi, Mohammed Boudra, Mekki Naciri, political refugees living in the international city which was my headquarters. My landlord and later friend, was the Cherief Dar Kaua, locally known as Al Wali, the Saint, a greatly revered religious leader.

One day, after I had paid my monthly rent, we had a chat and he asked me how l was working out and if, by chance, there was anything on my mind.

This startled me for, indeed, there was something on my mind my next door neighbour, a mechanic who also rented a house from Al Wali, had lost his job. His wife was obviously pregnant. l feared that she and he were in danger of being thrown out on the street because of inability to pay the rent. Tangier was a harsh place at the time.

Al Wali quoted to me the faith of his people, of which I knew little at the time, that there was an obligation on all fervent followers of the Prophet and servants of Allah to treat as they would their own people all who believed in the one, true God. I was much relieved.

Al Wali kept his word. The man and his wife, refugees from Franco's Spain, remained undisturbed throughout the rest of my stay in Tangier.

It so happened that I had an opportunity to repay to some extent the charity and compassion of Al Wali when an attempt was made in the Spanish zone to get rid of the Spaniards by armed rebellion. The French and Spanish language news papers carried not a word of the rising but the English language paper, the Gibraltar Chronicle, had something on it. And who was the leader? None other than Al Wali. So I was in an excellent position to get a good story.

I applied for and got an interview, which was conducted through the medium of French I knowing but little Arabic and he knowing insufficient Spanish and no English.

Failed Rising

He was surrounded by some of his followers who had managed to escape the vicious Spanish reaction to the failed rising, including the alleged tortures of the Spanish Foreign Legion to obtain intelligence. The descriptions were horrifying in the extreme.

I had the choice of three post offices in Tangier Spanish, French and British. I guessed that both Spanish and French offices would be subjected to censorship, official or unofficial, so I chose the British, and off went the story to the late Liam MacGabhann, then features editor of the Irish Press.

Some days after I had a visit from one of Al Wali's lieutenants who asked me to return for another chat. This time he wanted a favour. Would I be so kind as to translate from the French into English telegrams to the leaders of the USA, the USSR and Britain, giving details of the suppression of the rising and asking their help in ending colonialism in North Africa?

I was delighted to be of help, translated the messages to Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin, my only contacts with those gentlemen. I do not know if my rebellious friends managed to get these messages out of Tangier.

I looked in vain for any further report in the Gibraltar Chronicle but maybe those telegrams did play some part in the eventual withdrawal of foreign occupation forces from North Africa, a withdrawal which was the Treaty of Algeciras of the early years of this century, which gave them legality of a sort and which was responsible for the status of Tangier.

Condemned to Death

But to return to the pair condemned to death in Iran for having abandoned Islam for the Baha'i faith, my plea is in answer to a plea from Amnesty International, of which I am proud to be a member.

The Baha'i faith was born in Iran and, before the revolution in that country, had some 500,000 followers. It is a religion which covers many countries, Ireland agreed to accept 50 members, fleeing persecution, but only 26 arrived. Before their arrival there were already some members here.

Some 20,000, I am told, have been executed in Iran for their religious beliefs.

"In the name of the most high God, Bismillah ar Rahman ar Rahime, so merciful, so friendly," terms often used in the Koran, and heard so often in Tangier, and in the name of my merciful and compassionate neighbours in Morocco, I appeal to the authorities in Tehran, through their representatives in Dublin, to convey our best wishes for the people of Iran, and our appeal for the pardoning from the death sentence, at the very least on the basis that the Baha'i people, along with me, believe in the one true God.