e decrees was that each religious community
had to develop the "sentiment of loyalty in their followers toward the
people's power and the People's Republic of Albania, as well as their
patriotic feelings." The Statute of the Independent Catholic Church of
Albania was approved by Decree No. 1322 of July 30, 1951.

The regime's policy toward each of the three religious denominations,
although differing somewhat in tactics, aimed from the outset at the
eventual destruction of all organized religion. The regime achieved
control over the Muslim faith by dealing with each sect separately. The
first measure aimed at dividing the Sunni and Bektashi, which was
effected, officially, in May 1945, when the two were declared completely
independent of each other.

In dealing with the Sunni clergy, the government arrested and executed
as "enemies of the people" those members of the top hierarchy who were
reluctant to toe the Communist line, while others were imprisoned or
sent to concentration camps. It named as head of the Sunni community
Hafez Musa Haxhi Ali, who in 1950 led a delegation of the Sunni clergy
to the Soviet Union, visiting Uzbekistan and the Muslim religious
shrines of Samarkand and Tashkent and meeting with many Soviet Muslim
leaders. He was also used in appeals for world peace and other slogans
directed at the Muslim countries in the Middle East.

The policy followed toward each group differed somewhat. The Bektashi
group had always been much more liberal and forward looking than the
Sunni. During the war a few leading Bektashi clergymen had joined the
National Liberation Movement, and three of them--Baba Mustafa Faja
Martaneshi, Baba Fejzo, and Sheh Karbunaro--played major roles in
bringing about close collaboration between the Bektashi order and the
regime. In March 1947, however, Baba Faja and Baba Fejzo were
assassinated at the group's headquarters in Tirana, where they had gone
to meet with the World Bektashi Primate Dede Abazi (the Bektashi had
moved their world headquarters in the 1920s from Ankara to Tirana). As
the Tirana press reported the event: "The leaders of the Bektashi, Baba
Faja and Baba Fejzo, cooperating with the people's government, visited
Dede Abazi to discuss the democratization of the religious organization.
Dede Abazi answered with bullets, killing them both. Later he shot
himself." Taking advantage of this incident, the regime eliminated those
leaders of the Bektashi clergy it considered d