Posted on 12/03/2016 3:32:36 PM PST by dynachrome
A Kuwaiti online activist will spend 10 years in jail, an appeals court has ruled, for posting messages on Twitter that "insulted the emir" and "spreading false news" that endangered the country.
The court on Thursday confirmed the jail term against Waleed Fares handed down by a lower court in May, AFP reported.
Fares was arrested in September 2015 for comments under the name “Gibrit Seyassi” about Kuwait’s emir and ruler, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al Sabah, "offending the judiciary" and "accusing the attorney general and public prosecution of being biased".
Fares said at his trial he had been beaten and threatened into a confession, according to a statement by the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI).
He was briefly released in October, when the appeals court suspended his jail sentence until its review.
Dozens of opposition politicians and activists have in recent years been arrested by the Kuwait authorities and sentenced to prison, mostly on charges of insulting the emir or undermining his authority.
The crackdown came after the emir dissolved an opposition-dominated parliament in 2012 sparking two years of mass street protests.
(Excerpt) Read more at middleeasteye.net ...
Aren’t lèse-majesté laws grand?
Yeah, Islam is not a problem.
After all, many Moslem-driven countries are our “friends”, and “good”! Like Kuwait!
And we spent our blood and treasure to bail these guys out? Might as well have let Saddam have them.
Pretty much.
Especially if you spoke out against him online and insult him.
“spreading false news” that endangered the country.”
Hmmm....that seems like a good law that we could use.
10 years instead of death ? whoa....this is huge.
emir & courts must be liberal.
How many Americans died to keep this pig in power????
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