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This grave censure pronounced by the Mandates Commission of the League of Nations on the administration of justice and the general conduct of affairs in Iraq, as well as the association of the humiliation afflicting Baha'u'llah's sacred dwelling-place with the obligations implied in the Treaty of Alliance binding the Governments of Great Britain and Iraq, not only proclaim to the world the enhanced prestige of that hallowed and consecrated spot, but testify as well to the high sense of integrity that animates the members of the League's honored Commission in the discharge of their public duties. In their formal reply to the Baha'i petitioners, the members of the Permanent Mandates Commission have, with the sanction of the Council of the League of Nations, issued this most satisfactory declamation: "The Permanent Mandates Commission, recognizing the justice of the complaint made by the Baha'i Spiritual Assembly of Baghdad, has recommended to the Council of the League such action as it thinks proper to redress the wrong suffered by the petitioners." A similar passage inserted in the report of the Finnish Representative to the Council of the League runs as follows: "The Commission has also considered a petition from the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Iraq, a community which has been dispossessed of its property by another community and has been unable to recover it by legal means. The Commission is convinced that this situation, which is described as an injustice, must be attributed solely to religious passion, and it asks that the petitioner's wrongs should be redressed. I venture to suggest that the Council should accept the Mandate Commission's conclusions on this case, which is an example of the difficulties to be met with in the development of a young country." This report, together with the joint observations and conclusions of the Commission, have been duly considered and approved by the Council of the League, which has in turn instructed the Secretary-General to bring to the notice of the Mandatory Power, as well as the petitioners concerned, the conclusions arrived at by the Mandates Commission
(178:1)
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