page_title: Matar Matar
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Matar Matar / Bahraini uprising / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: Protesters fests toward Pearl roundabout
context_page_description: Matar Ebrahim Ali Matar is a Bahraini politician of the Al Wefaq party who served as a Member of Parliament from October 2010 until his resignation in early 2011. Born in the village of Al Daih to a large family with diverse political views, Matar completed his secondary education in Bahrain and moved to Kuwait to pursue higher education. He remained there until 2002 when he returned to Bahrain and joined Al Wefaq political party. Matar was politically active, working within committees in the party and meeting with foreign officials. In 2010, he won with a large margin in the Parliamentary election, becoming the youngest of all MPs and representing the country's largest constituency.
  When the Bahraini uprising started in early 2011, Matar joined the protests and gave several interviews to international media. Following government crackdown, he and other party MPs resigned from Parliament. Due to his activism, Matar was arrested by authorities in May. He was allegedly kept in solitary confinement and subjected to torture while in detention before getting tried before a military court. He was released in August and acquitted of charges in February 2012.
context_section_description: Beginning in February 2011, Bahrain saw sustained pro-democracy protests, centered at the Pearl Roundabout in the capital of Manama, as part of the wider Arab Spring. Authorities responded with a night raid on 17 February (later referred to by protesters as Bloody Thursday), which left four protesters dead and more than 300 injured. In March, martial law was declared and Saudi troops were called in. Despite the hard crackdown and official ban, the protests continued.
caption: Protests at Pearl Roundabout in February 2011
exif: {}