Inspired by the widespread ‘Arab Spring’ movements in countries across the Middle East, Bahraini anti-regime protesters on 14 February 2011 took to the streets in the small Persian Gulf monarchy in a series of protests against the ruling Al-Khalifa family. The mass protests were violently broken up by government security forces, with dozens of protesters killed and hundreds jailed. In the five years since the uprising, Bahraini activist Said Yousif Al-Muhafdah told Mehr News Agency that the pro-democracy movement, although quieter now, is still ongoing while the widespread crackdown against peaceful activists continues.
Said Yousif Al-Muhafdah who serves as the Vice President of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, a non-profit organization based in Bahrain and Denmark, has himself been a target of arbitrary arrests and torture for his human rights work in Bahrain and exiled to Germany as a result.
