In December 1948, two wives from Durrës, Fejme and Sehadet Selfo, sent a telegram to Enver Hoxha, then president of the Council of Ministers. They asked for the release of their husbands, the well-known Gjirokastrian merchants Reiz and Mashar Selfo. The Selfo family was known in Gjirokastër for their commercial activities, but also for the contribution they had made to the education of the city’s youth – among them Enver Hoxha.
In their letter, the women pointed out that the men had paid off the financial obligations the state had demanded of them down to the last coin, including a considerable sum in gold, but they were still being unjustly held in prison. Their plea was simply that the law be respected.
The request was never heeded. Only a few years later, in 1951, after the bombing of the Soviet embassy, Reiz Selfo would be tortured and then executed along with dozens of others, becoming one of the early victims of communist repression.
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Telegram text
Colonel General Enver Hoxha,
President of the Council of Ministers, Tirana
Tirana – 7/12/1948
The undersigned Faiths and Self-Proclaims have the honor to present the following prayer:
Two months ago our men, named Reis and Mas'har Selfo, came to an agreement with the Executive Committee of the city of Tirana and liquidated the remaining part of their obligation against the extraordinary tax, paying an additional 350 gold napoleons, based on the request of the city's finance section. The minutes of the agreement for the settlement of the debt were duly signed by the contracting parties, as well as by the Tirana district control inspector and advised that after the agreement our men were released from prison, settling once and for all the debt they owed to the finance department, a week after their release, the former Minister of Finance Ramadan Çitaku, by verbal order, ordered the Executive Committee of the city to imprison our men, violating the agreement reached with the Executive Committee, which was authorized by Ramadan Çitaku himself to enter into negotiations with the merchants to liquidate the remaining part of the obligations.
For the sake of the equal right that the law provides us, we appeal to your Excellency, since our men have been held in prison for four years, although they have liquidated every obligation they had to the finance a year and a half ago. We are more than sure that your Excellency will not lack the care for a just solution that is due to us.
With respect,
Fejme e Sehadet Selfo
Vaso Pasha Street no. 1, Durrës
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An early glimpse of the regime's face
This forgotten telegram is a rare document that shows the true face of the communist regime in the first years after the War. It proves how legal agreements, official signatures and state guarantees were worthless in the face of an arbitrary power that made decisions by verbal orders. The plea of two simple women for justice was met with the silence and cruelty of the dictator, turning his former benefactors into victims of ruthless political violence.
