Al-Khawaja has previously gone on a series of hunger strikes while serving his life sentence, in protest of the political conditions in Bahrain.

In the summer of 1980, after fellow students had been detained and interrogated under torture for their activities in London and his family's house had been ransacked and searched, al-Khawaja, fearing detention if he went back to Bahrain, decided to remain abroad.

[14] In 1981, the Bahraini government staged a crackdown on opponents, claiming to have uncovered a coup attempt by the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain.

Seventy-three detainees were tried by the State Security Court (now abolished) on charges of membership of an illegal organization and attempting to use violence and given sentences of 7–25 years imprisonment.

Following his resignation from the CDPPB in 1992, he and other Bahrainis living in exile in the Scandinavian countries and the UK founded the Bahrain Human Rights Organization (BHRO), based in Denmark.

[14] During the period 1992–2001 BHRO gained respect for persistent, professional, and non-partisan activities at international level which contributed to the political changes that took place in Bahrain when the new ruler came to power in 1999.

[14] On 25 September 2004, the BCHR was closed down, and al-Khawaja was arrested,[14] a day after publicly criticizing the prime minister and the Bahraini regime for corruption and human rights abuses,[19][20] using language which "the authorities easily construed as incitement of hatred".

On the morning of 21 November, the court sentenced al-Khawaja to one year in prison, but later in the day it was announced that he had been given a Royal Pardon by the King and was released.

A total of 32 people said to have required hospital treatment, including Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, Nabeel Rajab and labor rights activist Abbas al-'Umran.

Several hundred supporters who tried to hold a march in Jidhafs, on the outskirts of Manama, to demand the activists' release clashed with authorities.

[28] The Haq Movement spokesman Abdul-Jalil Al-Singace reported that Special Forces fired tear gas and rubber bullets at the demonstrators, who originated from several villages west of the capital.

[28] The Al-Wefaq Society, the largest grouping in the Bahraini Parliament with 17 out of 40 seats, called for an immediate session of the National Assembly, claiming that the arrests threatened the credibility of the reform process.

Al-Wefaq chief Sheikh Ali Salman criticized the arrests in his Friday sermon and attacked the authorities for their use of indiscriminate force.

)[32] On 9 February 2010, al-Khawaja was removed from a Turkish Airlines flight at Bahrain International Airport, as he was about to leave for Istanbul to attend a human rights conference.

The Crown Prince promised to start a dialogue with the opposition following a visit to Bahrain by Robert Gates, Defense Secretary of the United States, to discuss the situation.

They dragged him downstairs by the neck, leaving a trail of blood from injuries inflicted by five officers who refused to stop beating him despite his claims that he was unable to breathe.

[40][41] Sadly, all security apparatus in the Arab world have one thing in common - namely persecuting the thinkers and virtuous people based on their activism and work defending the rights of others.

[44] According to representatives of al-Khawaja's family who were able to speak with him briefly, he was only able to resist the attempt by four men to rape him by banging his already damaged head against a concrete floor.

[7][35][48][49] Zainab al-Khawaja, who attended the trial, "tweeted" that after the sentence was read, her father raised his fist and shouted "We shall continue on the path of peaceful resistance!

He was taken to hospital several times where doctors failed to administer him an IV line due to his veins' weak conditions, his family said.

According to his wife, al-Khawaja spent most of his time lying down, needed hot water to keep his body's normal temperature, and became exhausted after 10–15 minutes of exposure to sunlight.

[42][45][53] The government refused access to independent activists to examine him, stating that al-Khawaja's condition was stable and medical care was being provided.

Al-Khawaja considered the force feeding and the solitary confinement to be torture; he gave the doctor's name as Dr Ebrahim Zuwayed, declared he will hold him, the hospital and the Ministry of Interior responsible, and that he was continuing with his hunger strike.

[58] The UK Foreign Office, noting that Ibrahim Sharif was a prominent moderate opposition politician who had been a constructive participant in Bahraini politics, expressed concern at the trial of civilians under martial law by tribunals chaired by a military judge, as well as reports of abuse in detention, lack of access to legal counsel and coerced confessions.

Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa program director, Malcolm Smart, described the trials as patently unfair, emphasizing inadequate investigation of claims of torture and the use of false confessions as evidence.

[7] Summing up the situation, he said: "These trials and convictions represent yet further evidence of the extent to which the rights to freedom of speech and assembly are now being denied in Bahrain.

The manner in which these trials were conducted – with civilian defendants brought before a secretive military court from which international observers have been barred is highly alarming.

[63] The United States expressed concern for al-Khawaja's well-being and called on the Bahraini government to "consider urgently all available options to resolve his case.

He said that the medical treatment which he was undergoing was good except the Bahraini officials were trying to force-feed him, an accusation the government instantly denied.

[66] The European Parliament passed a resolution on the case of Abdulhadi al-Khawaja and urged the authorities of Bahrain to ensure that the rights of detainees are upheld at all times.