One year ago, Arab Spring protests briefly gripped the tiny Gulf country of Bahrain. Just as quickly, however, they were crushed. SPIEGEL spoke with Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa about the need for reform, whether democracy is right for his country and what exactly a king does.
It was exactly one year ago, on Feb. 14, 2011, that a few thousand demonstrators gathered in the Bahraini capital of Manama to demand more popular participation and political reform. It was the first sign that the "Arab Spring" was spreading to the Gulf region. From the very beginning of the protests, Bahraini security personnel used violence in their attempts to clear demonstrators from Pearl Square.
On March 15, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa announced a state of emergency. One day earlier, tanks from the Peninsula Shield Force, a kind of rapid reaction force assembled by the six Gulf monarchies, had rolled into Bahrain from Saudi Arabia. In no other place were Arab Spring protests so rapidly and thoroughly crushed as they were in Bahrain. Forty-six people, including police officers and immigrants, died in the demonstrations, five of them as a result of torture. Some 3,000 people were arrested and 700 of them were still behind bars at the end of the year. More than 4,000 people lost their jobs as a result of participating in the demonstrations.
Shiites are in the majority in Bahrain, but the Sunni Al Khalifa royal family has held power there for over 200 years. Shiites are largely excluded from the military and from the police force. Until February 2011, the kingdom of King Hamad had been seen as a model country in the region.
In addition to several churches, Manama is also home to a synagogue as well. Hamad bin Isa, now 62, rose to the throne in 1999 and since then has expanded the rights of women, modernized his country and established Bahrain as a financial center in the region...
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,814915,00.html