

Bahrain has been inhabited since prehistoric times, and several thousand burial mounds in the northern part of the main island probably date from the Sumerian period of the 3rd millennium bce. It was the seat of ancient Dilmun (Telmun), a prosperous trading centre linking Sumeria Sumer with the Indus valley about 2000 bce. The archipelago was mentioned by Persian, Greek, and Roman geographers and historians. It has been Arab and Muslim since the Muslim conquest of the 7th century ce, though it was ruled by the Portuguese from 1521 to 1602 and by the Persians from 1602 to 1783. Since 1783 it has been ruled by sheikhs of the Khalīfah family (Āl Khalīfah), which originated in the Al-Ḥasā province of Arabia.

The British protectorate



Domestic and foreign relations since independence







Protests flared again in March, with clashes between protesters and riot police causing disruptions in Manama. On March 14 a Gulf Cooperation Council security force of about 1,500 soldiers from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates entered the country via the King Fahd Causeway linking Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. The Bahraini government announced that it had invited the force to preserve public order. However, members of the opposition objected, condemning the move as equivalent to a foreign invasion. On March 15 King Ḥamad declared a state of emergency as clashes continued.

Following the declaration, Bahraini security forces once again cracked down, using rubber bullets, tear gas, and live ammunition to clear protesters from their main encampment in Pearl Square and from other areas in downtown Manama. There were reports that Bahraini security forces took over hospitals in Manama, attacking medical workers and preventing injured protesters from receiving treatment. Several protest movement leaders were arrested in overnight raids. On March 18, after clearing demonstrators out of Pearl Square, the government demolished a tall monument at the centre of the square that had become a symbol of the protest movement. The government’s aggressive response proved effective in deterring further mass protests, but smaller clashes between security forces and demonstrators continued around the island.

In the aftermath of the unrest, the Bahraini government launched a sweeping campaign to reassert the security forces’ authority and intimidate those thought to be responsible for the protests. Security forces raided the homes of opposition supporters and human rights activists, often placing them in secret detention. Some of the detainees were given quick trials in military courts. Additionally, thousands of workers suspected of having participated in the protests were dismissed from their jobs. The Bahraini security campaign also targeted Bahraini medical workers, detaining a number of physicians, nurses, and paramedics who were thought to have treated injured protesters. On May 8 King Ḥamad gave an order to lift the state of emergency, in place since March 15, on June 1. GCC forces reportedly began to leave the country soon afterward.

Once the Bahraini government was confident that the threat of renewed mass protests had passed, it began to make conciliatory gestures. The first of these was a national reconciliation conference convened by King Ḥamad in July 2011. Opposition leaders had expressed doubts that meaningful reforms could be achieved through government-sponsored dialogue; these doubts were affirmed when the government packed the conference with supporters, relegating the opposition delegation to a token presence, and omitted the opposition’s main demands from the agenda.

King Ḥamad also announced that he would commission an independent investigation into the government’s response to protests, to be carried out by a team of international legal experts. The report, published in November 2011, concluded that the Bahraini government had used excessive force to quell protests and that some detainees had been tortured while in the custody of the security forces. In addition, the report rebutted claims by supporters of the Bahraini government that the government of Iran had played a role in fomenting the unrest.

The king accepted these conclusions, and a commission was formed to implement the report’s recommendations. The government did carry out some of the recommended actions, such as reinstating many of the workers fired for political reasons and making plans to rebuild a number of Shīʿite religious buildings that had been demolished during the uprising. It also introduced some new measures to increase oversight and accountability for the security forces. However, all the senior officials responsible for the crackdown remained in their posts, and the government continued many of the abusive practices detailed in the report, including the imprisonment of opposition activists.

In May 2012 King Ḥamad made a series of amendments to the constitution meant to increase the parliament’s role in governance. The opposition rejected the amendments as inconsequential and repeated its demands for a fully elected parliament chosen through fair elections. Antigovernment anger continued to simmer; regular skirmishes between police and protesters led the government to impose a new ban on public demonstrations in October.