Pena di morte: Conferenza di NTC sulla pena di morte: Tunisia 15.10.95

Intervista a Dr. Mohamed Said Achmaoui-Giudice già membro della Corte di Cassazione dell’Egitto.

M.BA: How do you judge the situation of Yugoslavia by now?

Achmaoui: Situation in former Jugoslavia is very dangerous and unhuman. And i’am afraid that many countries in Europe and the United States may be taking some certain measurements especially because they are afraid from estabilishing a Moslem State in the middle of Europe. Because they don’t know and they are worried that such a country could be used by the militants to dissiminate miltancy in Europe and specially in Albania, Greece, Bulgaria and in the other countries in Middle Europe then i believe that we Moslems and specially the Moslems of Bosnia-Herzegovina should do something to convince the International Society that they are human beings and that they will never be militants or allowing militants activities to work trough them. This is very important. And at the same time i am calling, asking the United States, Russia, Germany, France, Great Britain and other countries to look to the situation in former Yugoslavia with a humanistic view point looking to the dealth of the ladies and children and the torturing of the innocent people from all sides and try to find a quick solution to estabilish peace in the region and in time people may be acquainted with each other and for give each other for what happened during the war time then live in Peace.

M.B: What is the difference between integrist, totalitarism and fundamentalism?

Achmaoui: It is not the way to describe the militance this word is being taken from the american heritage and initially was used by the journalists, but it is not true because to be a fundamentalist means to go to the fundamentals of the faith i believe that the militants are ideologists and they are not going to the fundamentals of the faith but they are actually distorting the faith and misinterpretting the versus of the religious books and threatening all the free people the liberials, the intelligencia they are not fundamentalists by any means they are in my opinion ideologists. Like the Fascist, Nazist, Marxists and so on (etc…)

M.B: One Religion is not?

Achmaoui: I mean to say that it is not ONLY ONE Religion from the beginning of human history until now but with many paths then if you look to the real Religion it is in my opinion just to have faith in God and to be straight in conduct; the rest, what we call Religion is mostly the parth of each teacher to teach the people how to have faith in God and be straight in conduct. I mention that because my studies, the results of my studies on the history of Religion all over the human history gave me proof that all the faiths are mostly one or they have common grounds and I used some verses of the Koran to prove my idea that it is one Religion but with many faiths. First of all this is my opinion or the result i came to after studying the history of Religion but moreover i believe that such an idea could let the people come together and instead of accusing each other of being heretic we will feed belief and behave as we are one community having one religion believing in God as the super

form of the human beings and that we have one God in different names and in the same time we have to have straight conduct by wich we should not exclude anyone, if one person is excluded from the ethical Code then the ethical Code will be colapsed. Then, in my opinion we have ONE GOD in different names and we have different ethical Codes but these Ethical Codes should be for all human beings or should be a good motive for all human beings otherwise it will be collapsed if we restrict the Ethical Code to some certain people it means that we are excluding others and then the Ethical Code will be collapsed (totally).

M.B: How you can compare Islam and Politics?

Achmaoui: I am against using Islam in Politics, we can use the Ethical Islamic Code to refine exercising politics but if faith religion is malignant, confused with politics then it turns automatically to be an ideology and not a faith. It is using the faith for bureaucratic purposes and this against the Religion.

M.B: What is the difference clear Islam etc…?

Achmaoui: Popolar Islam is the Islam of the lay people, they are not

cultured they are mixing faith with folklore sometimes and stressing some folkloric actions as phenomenon in the faith or as an exercising to the faith but faith real faith, Religion, true Religion needs a man who is cultured and has a fine conscience so he can understand the faith and in the same time he can extend all his activities all ethics to all human beings.

M.B: Koran and Death Penalty, how you can make relation ?

Achmaoui: As i mentioned in the conference i tried to interpret the verses of the Koran in a way to let it be understood by Moslems that the death penalty is very few and restricted in the Koran in general in belief, respects life and human being then the death penalty is mentioned only a very few times in the Koran and it is restricted and it is not very easy to be applied and mostly it could be dropped.

M.B: Real Islam in Arab countries, what that means?

Achmaoui: Means to lay people and integrated legal system, it’s Original meaning is not that, its authentic meaning in the Koran and Arabic language means the path, the method, the street and so on. The path of Islam to God is consisted of three streams worshipping, Ethical Code and some legal rules out of 6 thousand verses in the Koran there are legal rules only in 80 verses they mainly are concerned with family life family law and inheritance law the rest was kept intentionally from the Koran to the people so they can legislate to themselves up to the changing movment in the society and due to the circumstances of the place and of the time.

M.B: What is the motive of your condanation?

Achmaoui: Motive, i am looking to unify humanity if not in my generation then in the future i am working for that and i believe without peace between faiths there will be no peace between human beings. Then i am trying to semplify the faiths to offer a scientific and simple faith to all human beings for the future and at the same time to let such faith help humanity came together and be united.

M.B: Inellectuals with death penalty?

Achmaoui: All the intellectuals or most of the intellectuals in Egypt, the Arab World are following my ideas, but the militants, the ideologists are against me, they are fighting me with every weapon whether it is legal or not and and mostly they are fighting me with illegal weapons and in an inhuman

way.

M.B: Your impression in this important meeting with the Minister ?

Achmaoui: He is a cultured man, he has a humanistic view, he was talking to us in a scientific way to explain the view point of the government and of himself.(…)