Abdulrahman al-Nuaimi

Not to be confused with Abdul Rahman Bin Umair Al Nuaimi, born 1955, founding member of the charity Alkarama..

Abdulrahman al-Nuaimi (1943/1944 – September 1, 2011) was a Bahraini politician and opposition leader. Al-Nuaimi, who spent more than thirty years in self-imposed exile from Bahrain, founded some of the country's most important political opposition groups.[1]

He was born in 1944 on Muharraq island to the Sunni Al Nuaim family that has close ties to the traditional ruling circles.[2] In the 1960s he became increasingly politically active and joined the Arab Nationalist Movement. In 1966 he graduated from the American University of Beirut with a degree in mechanical engineering.[2]

He founded the Popular Front for the Liberation of Bahrain (PFLB), a resistance group, during the 1970s.[1] The groups was inspired by the Arab Nationalist Movement which was sweeping though the Arab World at the time.[1]

After a crackdown on the workers' movements at the power station where he was working in 1968, he left Bahrain to live in exile, spending 33 years in Damascus.[2]

In 2001, al-Nuaimi returned to Bahrain from aboard and re-entered politics.[1] He founded the National Democratic Action Society (NDA), Bahrain's largest leftist political party, with members of the former PFLB.[1]

The NDA is also known as the Wa'ad party.[1] Al-Nuaimi ran for a seat in the Council of Representatives of Bahrain during the 2006 parliamentary election, but lost to a pro-candidate candidate by a small margin.[1]

Abdulrahman al-Nuaimi suffered from deteriorating health in the mid-2000s. He fell into a coma in April 2007.[1] He was succeeded as head of the National Democratic Action Society by Ibrahim Sharif.[1] Al-Nuaimi remained in a coma until his death on September 1, 2011, aged 67.[1]

His successor as head of the National Democratic Action Society, Ibrahim Sharif, was sentenced to five years in prison in June 2011 following the 2011 Bahraini protests as part of a crackdown on opposition leaders.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 "Bahrain opposition figure al-Nuaimi dies". Associated Press. Forbes Magazine. 2011-09-01. Retrieved 2011-09-04.
  2. 1 2 3 Beaugrand, Claire (20 September 2011). "Abd al-Rahman Al-Nu'aimi: Forty Years of Bahraini Opposition". openDemocracy.net. Retrieved 8 October 2011.
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