Abdul Rahman Al Bakir

Abdul Rahman Al Bakir (1917–1980) was a leading activist and one of the independence leaders in the Arab Gulf states in the 20th century.[1] He was the founding member and secretary of the National Union Committee (NUC), a non-sectarian and pan-Arab independence group established in Bahrain in 1954.

Abdul Rahman Al Bakir
Born1917
Died1980 (aged 62–63)
NationalityBahraini
Known forSecretary of the National Union Committee

Early life

Al Bakir was born in Bahrain in 1917.[2] His family were Jews lived in Baghdad who later converted to Islam.[3] The parents of Al Bakir were from Qatar.[3] Al Bakir received a law degree from an Indian University.[4]

Activities and arrest

Al Bakir was employed at the Bahrain Petroleum Company in 1936 and then worked in Dubai, Qatar and in some African countries.[2] During this period he also visited various regions, including Zanzibar, Kenya and East Africa where he observed the effects of the British colonial policies which were very different from those in the Gulf states.[5] In the late 1940s he settled in Doha, Qatar, where he involved in ice business, but in 1952 he returned to Bahrain.[2] He was given a Bahraini passport in 1948.[2] In a meeting of the Bahraini political activists led by Al Bakir it was decided to launch a nationalist journal, Sawt al-Bahrain, which laid the basis of High Executive Committee.[6] He joined the editorial team of the weekly newspaper Al Qafilah in 1952.[2]

In 1954 Al Bakir and other progressive intellectuals established the High Executive Committee which would be later renamed the National Union Committee, and he was elected as its secretary.[2][7] The authorities asked Al Bakir to leave the country after the start of the large-scale demonstrations in country, and he left Bahrain for Cairo where he stayed between the end of March and September 1956.[2] In fact, the authorities ordered him to go to Lebanon.[2]

Following the demonstrations in 1956 the Bahraini authorities arrested three founders of the NUC, namely Abdul Rahman Al Bakir, Abdulaziz Al Shamlan and Abdul Ali Aliwat, who were accused of attempting to assassinate the ruler, Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, three members of the ruling family, and Charles Belgrave, advisor of Salman on 6 November 1956.[8] They were detained and sent to Jidda Island.[7] After the trial they were sentenced to fourteen years in prison and exiled to the island of Saint Helena on the orders of Salman bin Hamad on 23 December 1956.[9] Al Bakir made an application to the Supreme Court of St Helena and to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council to use the habeas corpus which was admitted.[8] Although the Council rejected his petition in the early 1960, on 7 April their case was reopened which was also rejected.[8] In June 1960 two Labor Party members of the House of Commons and some British newspapers, including The Guardian, began to call for the release of three NUC members claiming that the court did not impartially deal with the case.[8] In the late 1960 the Labour Party members demanded that these three men should be released and not to be sent to Bahrain.[8]

On 13 June 1961 Al Bakir, Al Shamlan and Aliwat were freed and went to London with their St Helena passports.[8] Each of them was paid £15,000 for compensation and £5,000 for expenses.[9]

Al Bakir published a book entitled min al-bahrain ila al-manfa~Sant Hilanah (From Bahrain to Exile in 'Saint Helena' in English) in Beirut in 1965.[10]

Personal life and death

The daughter of Al Bakir married Jassim Buhejji, one of the founders of the National Union Committee.[1] Al Bakir died in exile.[8]

References
  1. Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi (28 February 2012). "Jassim Buhejji, a life for Bahrain". Open Democracy. Retrieved 23 April 2021.
  2. Hamad Ebrahim Abdulla (2016). Sir Charles Belgrave and the Rise and Fall of Bahrain's National Union Committee (PhD thesis). University of East Anglia.
  3. Miriam Joyce (2000). "The Bahraini Three on St. Helena, 1956-1961". The Middle East Journal. 54 (4): 613–623. JSTOR 4329546.
  4. Troy Michael Carter. Traditions of protest, institutional sectarianism, and oil rentierism in authoritarian Bahrain (MA thesis). American University, Beirut. p. 60. hdl:10938/10241.
  5. Hassan Mohammad Abdulla Saleh (1991). Labor, nationalism and imperialism in eastern Arabia: Britain, the Shaikhs and the Gulf oil workers in Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar, 1932-1956 (PhD thesis). University of Michigan. p. 223. ProQuest 304025111.
  6. Wafa Alsayed (1 July 2020). "Sawt al-Bahrain: A Window onto the Gulf's Social and Political History". London School of Economics. Retrieved 22 April 2021.
  7. Mohammed Ghanim Al Rumaihi (1973). Social and political change in Bahrain since the First World War (PhD thesis). Durham University. pp. 365, 390.
  8. Miriam Joyce (2003). Ruling Shaikhs and Her Majesty's Government, 1960-1969. London; Portland, OR: Frank Cass. p. 55. ISBN 978-0-7146-5413-3.
  9. Richard E. Littlefield (1964). Bahrain as a Persian Gulf State With References to its Relations With Great Britain and the Province of Al-Hasa (MA thesis). American University of Beirut. ProQuest 2299173139.
  10. Khawla Mohammed Mattar (1992). Silent citizens: State, citizenship and media in the Gulf (PhD thesis). University of Durham.
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