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Pope Francis and King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain speak at a farewell rite for the pope Nov. 6 at Sakhir Air Base in Awali. Also pictured are Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, and Sheikh Ahmad el-Tayeb, grand imam of the Al-Azhar mosque and university in Egypt. (CNS/Vatican Media Reuters)
As Pope Francis delivered his first speech in Bahrain on Nov. 3 from the country’s opulent royal palace, death row inmate Mohammed Ramadhan sat in Jau prison, shocked and disappointed by what he heard.
In that speech, the pope addressed two of the country’s biggest debatable political problems today: its remedy for prisoners and its practice of capital punishment. adding for those who are punished, whose lives will not be taken from them,” Francis said.
His words were direct to Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, who invited the pope to the country and ended the kingdom’s de facto moratorium on capital punishment in 2017.
Since then, six more people have been executed and Ramadhan is one of 26 prisoners recently facing imminent execution in the country, despite the government’s repeated denial of any human rights violations or ill-treatment of prisoners. He sat on the floor next to the king, amazed at many family members who have long sought pardon for their death row loved ones.
“I’m so happy to hear the words,” Ramadhan’s wife, Zainab Ibrahim, told NCR by phone on Nov. 5. “I immediately told my eldest son and he was very, very satisfied. It gave us joy for our family. “
Soon after, Ibrahim won a phone call from her husband, who had listened to the pope’s speech live while watching BBC Arabic from prison, just 22km from where the pope was speaking at Sakhir Palace. Ramadhan told him he was astonished by what he had heard. .
For nine years, Ibrahim lived with the worry that her husband could be executed at any moment, after he was arrested in 2014 for his alleged involvement in a bomb blast that killed a police officer.
Ramadhan, a former member of Bahrain’s security forces, maintains his innocence and says he and other defendants were tortured to extract a forced confession. He believes he was politically targeted for participating in nonviolent protests following pro-democracy movements fueled through the occasions of the Arab Spring in 2011.
An internal review of the case in Bahrain also cited medical evidence of torture, and his initial guilty verdict was overturned by an appeals court, with a higher court eventually upholding the original death sentence.
The handling of the case has drawn the attention and indignation of human rights organizations.
According to a 2021 report, death sentences in Bahrain have skyrocketed over the past decade by more than 600%, following the occasions of the Arab Spring. Since then, the Sunni-ruled country has been the subject of strong complaints over its violent repression and imprisonment of Shia Muslim protesters, such as Ramadhan, the government has continuously denied the allegations.
Bahrain’s death row inmate, Mohammed Ramadhan, receives visits from his young men in prison. (Courtesy of Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy/Sayed Ahmed AlWadaei)
“There are no words to describe the pain we go through as a circle of relatives,” said Ibrahim, who told NCR that his circle of relatives can regularly stop in Ramadan about once a month, the maximum scales are placed through a glass barrier.
“The kids just to touch their daddy’s fingertips,” she said of her 3 children, a 13-year-old boy and 10-year-old twins.
Before the pope’s arrival for his Nov. 3-6 visit to the country, representatives from Bahrain’s London-based Institute for Rights and Democracy met with officials from the Vatican embassy in Britain to raise awareness about the scenario of political prisoners and death. Online in the kingdom.
The institute also sent letters from several detainees, directly asking the pope to take their requests to the king, who has the strength to hand down sentences or grant pardons.
“Your Holiness, Pope of the Vatican, you believe in spreading love and peace and in the message of Jesus, who sought to alleviate injustice and suffering of the oppressed and needy who found no one to help them,” Ramadan read. letter, a copy of which has been reviewed through NCR.
Sayed Ahmed AlWadaei, advocacy director at Bahrain’s Institute for Rights and Democracy, told NCR he expected Francis to deal directly with the situation, especially on his first day in the country. abolition of the death penalty in Bahrain, AlWadaei said.
“In fact, it is a rare moment in our history, to see someone with that authority sitting in front of the king of Bahrain and speaking directly to him about the importance of the right to life,” he said.
During the pope’s four-day visit, Ibrahim also tried, in vain, to take her case to Francis to appeal on behalf of her husband.
On November 5, just before Francis arrived to meet other young people here in Bahrain, Ibrahim appeared in the streets near the assembly site with other families of death row prisoners and a sign that read: “Tolerance and coexistence are a practice, not just a slogan.
During Pope Francis’ visit to Bahrain, Zainab Ibrahim protested the imprisonment and death sentence of her husband, Mohammed Ramadhan, on November 5. (Courtesy of Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy/Sayed Ahmed AlWadaei)
Ibrahim and the other protesters were detained by police before being released at a nearby shopping mall.
She told NCR that while it was mandatory to use the high-profile nature of the pope’s scale to make a last-minute plea for her husband, “who could be executed at any time,” she faced criminal retaliation against him when much attention was paid to his case.
Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, executive director of the U. S. -based Catholic Mobilization Network. The U. S. government that opposes the death penalty told NCR via email that “even though a small number of nations like Bahrain continue to execute and sentence their citizens to death, most of the world is moving. “backwards. More than 140 countries have rejected the death penalty, either in law or in practice.
“Pope Francis’ constant witness against capital punishment is vital here,” he observed, noting that he not only echoed the opposition of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI to the death penalty, but “continued to explain the teachings of the Church that oppose capital punishment. “punishment, adding with a historical review of the Catechism in 2018” that it is now “legally unnecessary and morally inadmissible. “
Before the pope arrived in the country, a senior Vatican official told reporters he hoped the pope would privately ask the king to release some of the country’s political prisoners at some point during the visit.
To date, the Vatican has clarified whether Francis in particular called for the release of political prisoners or death row searches.
The pope met personally with King Hamad at at least two events of his visit, as well as in a personal assembly on Nov. 6 with Bahrain’s justice minister just before leaving the country.
Ibrahim said that whatever happens, Francis’ stance on capital punishment “will be what other people will remember” from his time in Bahrain.
In his last public address in the country on Nov. 6, Francis returned to the issue of prisoners.
“Caring for prisoners belongs to everyone, as a human community,” the pope said, “because the way these ‘little ones’ are treated is a measure of the dignity and hope of a society. “