Expressions of solidarity with the five women nurses and the Palestinian doctor condemned to death by a Libyan court and held in prison for eight years in the North African country were held throughout Bulgaria on 9 February. Orthodox, Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Armenians and Jews prayed together for the first time to ask for the release of the nurses. All Bulgarians wore a lapel badge with the colours of the national flag and the slogan of the solidarity campaign, which was begun immediately after the second death sentence was pronounced by the Court in Tripoli last December. Similar events were held throughout the world; in Rome, too, the Bulgarian Orthodox community met in prayer in the church of SS. Vincenzo ed Anastasio. During the event in the Bulgarian city of Russe, the parish priest of the cathedral, Father Walter Gora emphasized that only God can give and take away life. “We cannot accept this sentence of the court – he told SIR – first of all because we in the Catholic Church are utterly against capital punishment. So the campaign of solidarity wishes to say to the world that these persons imprisoned for years in Libya deserve a fair trial and must not be made the scapegoats for the errors of others”.
