In this May 21, 2017, log photo, Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa speaks at an assembly with U. S. President Donald Trump in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. (Credit: Evan Vucci/AP)
An organization of U. S. activists selling human rights in Bahrain has called on Pope Francis to abandon his upcoming visit to the Gulf country or criticize what they call repressive and discriminatory government practices.
In an Oct. 12 statement, Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB) said certain acts of friendship toward some religions “absolve a dictator of his repression and harassment of others. “
They noted that the majority of Bahrain’s population are Shia Muslims, who they say are “deliberately repressed through discrimination, harassment and force. “
For this reason, the organization asked Pope Francis “to reconsider this because of the endemic discrimination that opposes Shiites in Bahrain or to draw attention to those violations if he decides to continue with the Matrix. “
Pope Francis will make an official visit to Bahrain nov. 3-6 to attend an interfaith convention titled “Bahrain Forum for Dialogue: East and West for Human Coexistence,” which is expected to attract other high-level devout leaders, adding the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar in Egypt, Ahmed el-Tayeb.
This will be the first pope in the country and the pope’s latest effort to promote interfaith relations, especially with the Muslim community.
In its statement, the ADHRB, which based on its commitment to raising awareness and supporting human rights in Bahrain and other Gulf Council (GCC) countries, said that when a country is “repressed by a dictator and forced to go through life without unusual debauchery, it undermines the rest of the world on the loose.
“When leaders make their friendship with tyrants who insist on meaningful change greater, the rest of the loose world is undermined. If a president or pope backs down from the harsh verbal exchange of challenging the violence and subversion of a dictator, freedom of conscience, expression and opinion is undermined everywhere,” they said.
Bahrain is a constitutional monarchy headed by King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa.
Al Khalifa has been king of Bahrain since February 2002, having ruled the country as emir since March 1999. He is the son of the first emir, Salman Al Khalifa. Bahrain has been ruled through the Al Khalifa dynasty since 1783, it was a British protectorate dynasty from the past 1800 until 1971.
Although Catholic leaders praised the king for providing the land on which Bahrain’s largest Catholic church, the Cathedral of Our Lady of Arabia, was built, which opened last year in the city of Awali, Al Khalifa has come under pressure to remedy the problem. country of the Shia Muslim community.
According to the U. S. Department of State’s 2020 International Religious Freedom Report. In the U. S. , the Bahraini government, whose charter states that Islam is official and sharia the guiding precept of the law, “continued to interrogate, detain and arrest clerics and other members of the Shia majority. “community.
The report says foreign and local NGOs reported that Bahrani police rounded up about 10 people, adding clerics, in the days before and after the Ashura commemoration in August, one of the maximum days in the Shiite devout calendar.
The government, he said, also “continued to monitor and provide general guidance on the content of all devout sermons, through devout Sunni and Shia leaders, and bringing opposing charges to clerics, presenting violations of issues previously approved by the government. . “
State television channels continued to broadcast Friday sermons from the country’s largest Sunni mosque, the al-Fateh Mosque, “but not the sermons of Shiite mosques,” according to the report, which says many Shiite mosques broadcast their sermons on social media.
Citing Shiite leaders and activists from the network, the report says Bahrain’s government “continues to give Sunni citizens a preferential resource for public sector positions” and that unemployment rates, poverty and limited opportunities for career advancement have a disproportionate effect on the Shiite network. .
However, the report presented the following warning: “Because devout and political affiliations were strongly linked, it was difficult to categorize many incidents as only (based) on devout identity. “
A Bahraini spokesperson responded to those claims, telling Crux that the country “is a multicultural society that prides itself on the nonviolent coexistence of various religions and peoples. “
“People of all religions in the Kingdom have the right to freedom of worship and to conduct activities and sermons,” the spokesman said, insisting that “prejudice of any kind is unacceptable, and the Bahraini government deals with attempts to publicize hatred. “department with the utmost seriousness.
They said that to date, “no census divides the population of Bahrain according to sect” and that citizens of all faiths, religions, ethnicities and genders “hold public positions of strength and duty by merit and experience. “
However, in its statement, the ADHRB organization claimed that the “harassment” of the Shiite Muslim network is “a checkpoint in Al-Khalifa’s purpose of staying in power. “
They pointed to the 2011 pro-democracy uprising in Bahrain, led largely by Shia Muslims who pushed for government reforms in favor of their parties and communities, and said the government, in its efforts to quell violent uprisings, intentionally targeted Shia Muslims and continued. to keep many in state prisons.
“The government has banned all bureaucracy from demonstrations, marches and devout assemblies, as well as funeral processions,” and also attacked the Shiite network’s Ashura celebrations “through the forced removal of banners and the summoning of devout figures to wonder about the sermons. “done,” the organization said.
Even in prison, Shia Muslims face discrimination, ADHRB said, citing several cases they say are evidence of torture and ill-treatment of Shia detainees.
Despite those claims, the 2020 U. S. International Religious Freedom Report noted that al-Khalifa issued a warrant in March 2020 pardoning 901 detainees, many of them Shiites, on humanitarian grounds amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Two months later, he pardoned 154 inmates who had served part of their criminal sentences.
In its statement, the ADHRB said Bahrain’s charter promises the right to freedom in public and personal spaces, but that “in practice, Shia Muslim worshippers have been summoned, arrested and forced to sign pledges,” and have even been “detained and convicted for practicing their rituals.
“The devout rights enumerated in the country’s legislation are just an act of subterfuge, published on paper as a way for Bahrain’s ruling circle of relatives to access the benefits of friendship with tougher and harder-to-understand world leaders the anguish of their human rights. violations,” they said, making it a subtext for Pope Francis’ upcoming visit.
The Bahraini government spokesperson told Crux that in relation to allegations of ill-treatment and harassment of prisoners because of their devoted affiliation, “No individual in Bahrain is arrested or detained for their devout or political beliefs. “
The government, they said, “fully supports the freedom to review and revise peacefully, which is enshrined and displayed in the Kingdom’s constitution. “
“However, in cases where violence or hatred is incited, promoted or glorified, it is a duty to investigate and, where appropriate, prosecute said matrix,” they said.
This article has been updated with comments from a spokesperson for the Government of Bahrain.
Follow Elise Ann Allen on Twitter: @eliseannallen
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