KUWAIT CITY: Human Rights Watch yesterday blasted Kuwait over a 20-month jail sentence served on a female online activist for “offending the emir” and urged the Gulf state to end such prosecutions.
The appeals court on Wednesday upheld the sentence on Sara Al Darees (pictured), for making remarks on Twitter deemed insulting to the emir.
The sentence “further erodes the right to free speech in Kuwait,” the New York-based rights group said in a statement.
“The Kuwait authorities over the past year have prosecuted dozens of people for peaceful political statements,” said Joe Stork, acting Middle East director at HRW. “The government should tolerate this kind of criticism, not persecute people who dare express it.”
At least three youth activists are serving jail terms on similar charges and many others are still on trial, including former opposition lawmakers. “The government should drop charges against those accused or convicted of crimes solely for exercising their right to freedom of expression, and it should amend Kuwait’s criminal code to remove the crime of ‘offending the emir’,” Stork said.
“Kuwait used to have a better reputation than most other Gulf states in respecting the right to free speech,” he added. “But with each case like this, the authorities are lowering themselves to the standards of the rest of the region.” According to the verdict, Darees now has to go to jail unless the Supreme Court agrees to grant her bail until it has reviewed her challenge to the ruling. Darees, a teacher, is the second Kuwaiti woman to be jailed on charges of insulting Emir H H Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah on Twitter. Last month, the lower court sentenced online activist Huda Al Ajmi to 11 years in jail for posting remarks on Twitter deemed insulting to the emir and calling for the overthrow of the regime.
Algerian prosecutor seeks death
penalty for children’s killers
ALGIERS: Algeria’s public prosecutor yesterday demanded the death penalty for two men on trial for abducting and murdering two boys aged nine and 10, the news agency APS reported.
The prosecutor said a third man accused of not alerting the police about the kidnapping that occurred in March should be handed a life sentence, the national news agency said.
The boys were strangled to death and their bodies found on Tuesday inside plastic shopping bags not far from their home in the city of Constantine, east of Algiers. Their brutal death triggered a national outcry. Two men were arrested hours after the bodies were found and admitted their responsibility, officials have said. The abduction of children in Algeria has been on the rise, according to official estimates which indicated that 31 children were kidnapped in the past year compared to four in 2008. AFP
