Following is an excerpt from the Iranian revolution leader, Imam Khomeini’s speech he delivered after a Raymond Davis-like incident took place in Tehran, in 1964. He said:
Iran no longer has any festival to celebrate; they have turned our festival into mourning. They have sold us, they have sold our independence; but still they light up the city and dance. The dignity of the Iranian Army has been trampled underfoot! A law has been put before the Majlis according to which we are to accede to the Vienna Convention, and a provision has been added to it that all American military advisers, together with their families, technical, and administrative officials, and servants in short, anyone in any way connected to them are to enjoy legal immunity with respect to any crime they may commit in Iran. If some Americans servant, some American cook, assassinates your marja in the middle of the bazaar, or run over him, the Iranian police does not have the right to apprehend him! Iranian courts do not have the right to judge him! The dossier must be sent to America, so that our masters can decide what is to be done. They have reduced the Iranian people to a level lower than that of the American dog. If someone runs over a dog belonging to an American, he will be persecuted. But if an American cook runs over the Shah, the head of the state, no one will have the right to interfere with him. Why? Because they wanted a loan and American demanded this in return.
The speech motivated and incited a huge crowd of people and as a result Imam Khomeini was sent to exile in November 1964. But here in Pakistan, no political leader is forcefully pleading the Davis case with courage and dignity. What to talk of revolution or the change like that of Tunisia or Egypt? A leader is missing.
DR AHMAD ALI ALLAY
Dera Ismail Khan
