The Kuwaiti Court of Appeals handed down a five year sentence with hard labor to blogger Bader Al Rashidi, Thursday, March 21st, for allegedly insulting the Emir on his Twitter account. Lately, the incredible explosion of Twitter in the Gulf region has been overshadowed by a steady stream of cases where outspoken bloggers have been jailed for 140-character comments. Over the past few years, Al...

Kuwaiti blogger and publisher, Zayed Al Zaid, of the online news organization, Alaan was sentenced to one month in jail, for an article he wrote a year ago, entitled “Corrupted Speaking about Corruption.” The article pointedly criticized former Prime Minister Abdul Mohsen Midaji, for rampant corruption, and expressed surprise regarding Midaji’s willingness to champion causes that speak...

Hundreds of Kuwaiti activists are gathering in protest, contesting the legitimacy of a newly elected parliament convened by the Kuwaiti Emir Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah while the assembly was out of session. The demonstrations took place at the Palace of Justice in downtown Kuwait City, during parliament’s first session after the election. The Kuwaiti government has responded in kind, with a...

Seizing the opportunity to celebrate Human Rights Day last Monday, Kuwaiti activists and supporters of “Bedouns,” people who reside in the country without citizenship, have gathered, calling for their equal rights. The theme for the sixty-fourth year anniversary of Human Rights Day is “inclusion and the right to participate in social life. In particular drawing attention to all people’s...

Kuwaiti authorities arrested two Kuwaiti-born activists Khaled Al Batah and Yousef Al Zuhairi Monday. Al Batah and Al Zuhairi belong to the stateless minority of Kuwaiti Bedouns. Al Batah was arrested for participating in a demonstration on October 2, 2012 that called for the right of Bedouns to acquire citizenship. Al Batah was summoned by the police department of his district in al Suliabieh,...