Manama: This week Pope Francis will visit Bahrain for the first time in the history of the Catholic Church. The visit aims to strengthen ties with Islam, but it has also come under fire from allegations of human rights abuses in the Gulf state.

The historic visit to the United Arab Emirates in 2019 - where Pope Francis signed a Muslim-Christian Declaration for Peace - comes three years after the Thursday-Sunday visit, which is Francis' 39th international visit.

However, some human rights organizations are now hoping that Francis will pressure Bahrain's Sunni ruler, King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, to end the country's repression of Shia Muslims, even as Qatar's human rights record There has been an increase in the investigation of the neighboring country. A few months before the World Cup.

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The 85-year-old pope from Argentina has made it a priority to reach out to Muslim communities during his pontificate, traveling to Middle Eastern countries such as Egypt in 2017 and Iraq in 2018 and promising interreligious dialogue with prominent Muslim clerics.

Francis will meet Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand imam of Cairo's famed Al-Azhar Mosque and Islamic Education Center, at the Sakhir Palace in the country's center on Friday. He is the highest authority in Sunni Islam.

The two religious leaders committed to the coexistence between Christians and Muslims in a joint statement signed in Abu Dhabi in February 2019. A Pope had never before traveled to the Gulf, the area where Islam was first practiced.

Francis will also hold an "East and West" forum with the Muslim Council of Elders in Abu Dhabi, which will cover topics including Muslim communities in the West, humanitarian crises, environmental concerns and Muslim-Christian relations.

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Religious acceptance?

In addition, on Friday, the world's 1.3 billion-strong Catholic leader, who is expected to travel in a wheelchair due to ongoing knee pain, will lead an interfaith prayer at the sprawling Our Lady of Arabia Cathedral in Awali. opened its doors in December.

The more than 2,000-seat cathedral was built to serve about 80,000 Catholics from Bahrain, most of whom were immigrants from southern Asia, mainly workers from India and the Philippines.

Bahrain, like the United Arab Emirates, is regarded as a relatively more tolerant Arab country than Saudi Arabia, the ultra-conservative Sunni superpower that human rights organizations often point to as infringing on its rights and whose absolute monarchy is for all non-states. Forbids Muslim places. Why worship?

Nevertheless, NGOs continue to point to abuses such as discrimination, repression and persecution of Shiites by the Sunni elite in Bahrain, as well as government crackdowns on opposition leaders and activists.

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According to the religious freedom law in Bahrain, the non-profit Democracy for Americans and Human Rights in Bahrain, "printed on paper as a means for the Bahraini ruling family to access the benefits of friendship with the more powerful was merely an act of deceit." . obscure the sorrow of world leaders and their human rights abuses," he wrote in a recent report.

The group urged the pope to pay attention to the "mass discrimination" faced by Bahrain's Shiites. The Pope has made speaking up for the marginalized a hallmark of his papacy.

In the ten years since pro-democracy demonstrations began in 2011, Bahrain has "targeted marginalized opposition figures", according to a report released Monday by Human Rights Watch.

The annual Formula One race in Bahrain has also been frequently criticized because of the country's human rights record. The 2011 Grand Prix was canceled due to the serious action that followed the protests.

Francis' visit is influenced by the upcoming World Cup in nearby Qatar, which has drawn attention to that country's record on human rights, particularly with regard to how low-income migrant workers, women and members of the LBGTQ community are treated there. is done.

Huge conference

According to priest Charbel Fayed, the pope will hold a mass on Saturday in Bahrain's second largest city, Rifa, in front of an estimated 28,000 devotees.

He told AFP he expected worshipers from other Gulf countries and added: "We are happy to see many Christians in the region.

The Pope has traveled to several countries with most Muslims during his pontificate, including Jordan, Turkey, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Egypt, Bangladesh, Morocco, Iraq and most recently, Kazakhstan in September. He will conclude his visit on Sunday by leading a prayer meeting with Catholic priests in Manama.