In January 1995, the Bahraini government forcibly exiled him to Dubai for leading a popular campaign demanding the reinstatement of the constitution and the restoration of parliament during the 1990s Uprising.

Salman returned to Bahrain in March 2001 in a general amnesty as part of a set of political reforms announced by King Hamad.

According to an unknown source close to his family, Sheikh Ali Salman was severely tortured by Al Khalifa regime in prisons.

Ali Salman originally studied in Qom, a major centre of Twelver Shi'a theological thinking in Iran.

He is a Twelver Shiite who originally followed the quietist teachings of Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Abu al-Qasim al-Khoei, the spiritual leader of much of the Shia world until his death in 1992.

However, in a private interview he claimed that he now tended to rely on the rulings of Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali al-Husayni al-Sistani.

Following his arrest in 1994, Salman was exiled and made his way to London, where he associated with the Bahrain Freedom Movement, an opposition group led by Saeed al-Shehabi.

For instance, in 2002, when the parliament was restored after about 30 years of suspension, Sheikh Issa Qassim's publicly declared advise to Al Wefaq was to participate in the elections, but Al Wefaq took a joint-decision with other opposition groups to boycott the 2002 elections in protest of the King's unkept promise to separate the three powers and transit from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy.