Coming to promote the dialogue between Islam and Christianity, François began his three -day visit by approaching human rights and the death penalty, in force in the kingdom.
by
Funny paradox between the spirit and the body that Pope Francis showed Thursday November 3, the first day of his trip to Bahrain. Visibly weakened, the sovereign pontiff admitted having “badly”, in front of the journalists who accompanied him on the plane taking him to Manama in order to participate in the forum of dialogue between the East and the West, organized until Friday 4 In this Gulf country. It was therefore sitting that he received the presentations in the device that led him to destination. A first.
It was also seated in his wheelchair that he went to the reception reserved by the king at Awali airport. Arrived by car in the palace courtyard of the royal palace of Sakhir with immaculate white walls, he then returned to this chair before expressing themselves in front of the Bahrainis dignitaries, members of civil society and diplomats.
Low, conversely, his speech was not. Sitting next to King Hamed Ben Issa al-Khalifa, François subtly raised the question of human rights and workers’ rights in a kingdom plagued by uprisings of a mainly shirk population, repressed by Sunni power . Residents are there for almost half from foreign countries, in search of work in a prosperous petromonarchy.
Previously, François took the time of a closed -door meeting with the king of Bahrain. For more than half an hour, the two sovereigns spoke outside the presence of journalists. They then arrived in the main courtyard of the royal palace, where 21 cannons and a protocol parade of the royal guard welcomed them.
fight against discrimination
After a brief speech by King Hamad Ben Issa al-Khalifa, François took the floor and praised a country where “people of various origins form an original mosaic of life”. A reference to different nationalities and especially to the religions that make up the population of the kingdom. He called for “fundamental human rights to be raped”. For the pope “equal dignity and equal opportunities” must be “concretely recognized for each group and each person so that there is no discrimination”. And to add, in an allusion to the capital penalty in force in the kingdom: “I think above all about the right to life, of the need to always guarantee it, even to those who are punished, whose existence cannot be eliminated. “
A first political discourse in which the Pope could not ignore the calls of human rights NGOs, which have recalled him in recent days the conditions of treatment of dissidents to the king since the 2011 uprising. A revolt whose upheavals in recent years have continued to be repressed. Power suspects the demonstrators, often from the country’s Shiite majority, to be subservient to the Iranian regime. In the Bahreïnies jails, 26 prisoners are waiting to be executed after their death sentence. From this trip, the Holy See also awaits, according to a Vatican source, the liberation of Shiite prisoners, including minors. He thus bets on a local tradition according to which the king Gracie prisoners during state visits like these.
You have 39.64% of this article to read. The continuation is reserved for subscribers.