08 December 2011

Ali Salman


Ali Salman is the leader of Bahrain's opposition Al-Wefaq party and a Shiite cleric. He spent several years in exile because of his role in Bahrain's protests in the 1990s, returning when King Hamad granted a general amnesty to those who had demonstrated against his father. Upon this amnesty, Salman and others founded the Al-Wefaq party in 2001; while they skipped the 2002 parliamentary election, they won almost half of the parliamentary seats in 2006.


Described as moderate in the Islamist party, Salman received his education first in Bahrain and then at the famous Shi'a seminary in Qom, Iran. A student of the late Ayatollah Khoei, he has not declared allegiance to another Ayatollah since his teacher's death, rare among Shia leaders. Soon after the Arab Spring spread to Bahrain, Salman and the other Al-Wefaq members of Parliament stepped down to protest the brutal crackdown against the demonstrators. 

For more information, see http://bit.ly/kM2qRd.

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