Kuwait sentences blogger to jail for insulting Saudi Arabia

The criminal court in the oil-rich Persian Gulf kingdom handed down the sentence to Abdullah al-Saleh on Sunday, after the defendant was found guilty of “spreading false news,” the pro-government and Arabic-language al-Watan daily newspaper reported.

Last October, the Kuwaiti Ministry of Interior announced that it had referred a group of people to the Public Prosecution for insulting Saudi Arabia on social media networks, particularly Twitter.

The posts were described as “offensive” after they were published during Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s visit to Kuwait on September 30 last year.

On March 18, 2015, Kuwait arrested an opposition activist on suspicion of insulting Saudi Arabia on his Twitter account.

Social media activists, requesting not to be named, said Tariq al-Mutairi, head of the liberal Civil Democratic Movement (CDM), was detained on his way home by men in plain clothes, believed to be from the state security service.

The state news agency KUNA, citing an interior ministry statement, said Mutairi was arrested for “publishing a number of tweets insulting the sister Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”

The Kuwaiti Court of Appeals on October 28, 2013, upheld a 10-year prison sentence against Hamad al-Naqi for insulting the kings of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain among other charges.