Posts Tagged ‘Kuwait’
June 6th, 2012
A Kuwaiti man was
sentenced to 10 years in prison on Monday after being convicted of endangering state security as a result of messages he sent on Twitter. The judge found Hamad al-Naqi guilty of insulting the prophet Muhammad and Islam, and insulting the rulers of neighbouring Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Al-Naqi pleaded innocent at the start of the trial last month, saying his Twitter account had been hacked and he had not posted the messages.
May 18th, 2012
A
Kuwaiti blogger has been sentence to
ten years in prison and fined 1000 Kuwaiti dinars for ”insulting the Prince and his powers” in poems uploaded on YouTube. Lawrence al-Rashidi was initially accused of ”spreading false news and rumors about the situation in the country” and ”calling on tribes to confront the ruling regime, and bring down its transgressions” in June 2011. The blogger is also being tried as a result of posts on Twitter, deemed to be “an insult to the princely identity” by authorities.
April 11th, 2012
Kuwaiti writer Mohamed al-Melify was
jailed for seven years on Monday on charges of spreading false statements via Twitter. He was arrested last February, and the Kuwait Criminal Court found him guilty of spreading false news about sectarian divisions in the country and publishing insults about Shiism, in addition to charges of libel and defaming a member of the Kuwaiti National Assembly, Ahmed Lari.
March 12th, 2012
An art exhibition in
Kuwait has been
shut down three hours after opening. A group of men entered the exhibition of a collection of paintings from Kuwaiti artist Shurooq Amin, and removed the paintings, claiming they had received a complaint over their content. Amin told
Al-Qabas newspaper that those who closed down the show misinterpreted the meaning of the paintings to be disrespectful of the society’s tradition.
March 7th, 2012
The suspension of a privately owned newspaper in
Kuwait has been extended for the second time. Daily paper Al-Dar was suspended in an emergency session on 2 February after authorities accused the paper of violating the Press and Publications Law by “undermining national unity” and “creating sectarian strife”. The accusations followed the publication in January of three articles defending the country’s Shiite minority. Kuwait’s Press Court extended the ban on Monday until at least 12 March when the court will meet again. Abdul Hussein al-Sultan, Al-Dar’s editor-in-chief believes the paper was suspended to prevent coverage of the February 2 parliamentary elections.
January 16th, 2012
The
Kuwait government
has supported the suppression of “stateless” protesters by security forces over the weekend.
Protests demanding citizenship rights turned violent, and riot police fired tear gas and used batons to disperse protesters.
A statement issued after Kuwait’s weekly cabinet meeting said: “The council of ministers expresses its backing and support for the measures being taken by the interior ministry to … confront all forms of violence.” The statement also said that only ”enemies of Kuwait” benefited from such unrest. Dozens were wounded and over 100 arrested during the protests.
September 26th, 2011
Sunni activist Mubarak al-Bathali has been
sentenced to three months in jail by a
Kuwaiti court for comments about Shiite Muslims made on his Twitter account. A few weeks ago, he was arrested by secret police, and charged with “undermining national unity” as well as “disparaging Shiites”.
January 11th, 2011
The Kuwaiti satellite channel Mubasher and newspaper Al-Mustaqbal, both owned by Shaikh Fahd Salem Al Ali have been
banned by the country’s ministry of commerce on a request by the ministry of information.
The ministry of commerce cited ”irregularities” as reason for the closures, however the
Arabic Network for Human Rights alleges that the real reason is the broadcast of anti-government seminars and demonstrations by the channel.
