KUWAIT CITY: A Kuwaiti court sentenced a Sunni Islamist activist to three years in jail yesterday for posting remarks deemed derogatory to Shias on his Twitter account.
Mubarak Al Bathali, who was jailed for six months in 2011 on similar charges, was sentenced after the court found enough evidence that his tweets constituted an insult to the faith of minority Shias and undermined national unity, a copy of the ruling said.
The sentence was confirmed by Bathali on his Twitter account and was criticised as harsh by online activists. The ruling was based on a 2013 law setting tough jail terms for people convicted of threatening national unity.
The verdict could be appealed, but Bathali has to start serving the sentence immediately according to the ruling.
Kuwait issued the national unity law last year amid rising sectarian tension in the oil-rich emirate where Shias form around a third of the 1.25 million native population.
Over the past few years, Kuwaiti courts passed dozens of jail sentences against online activists for religious offences and those critical to the emir.
Iran criticises Sudan for closing cultural centres
TEHRAN: Predominantly Shia Iran criticised Sudan yesterday for shutting down its cultural centres in the country over alleged Shiite proselytism, saying they had been operating correctly.
On September 2, a Sudanese official said the centres had been ordered closed in response to “increased activity... in spreading Shiaism,” the majority faith in Iran but a fringe one in overwhelmingly Sunni Sudan.
Tehran’s main cultural centre in the Sudanese capital was padlocked on Sunday.
Iranian foreign ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham said the centre was operating within the law, and blamed the decision to shut it down on “suspect political groups,” which she did not name.
Quoted by the Isna news agency, she said the centre’s “activities respected bilateral accords and Sudanese law”.
AFP
