JURIST - Paper Chase: Kuwait man sentenced to 10 years for posting insulting comments on Twitter

JURIST - Paper Chase: Kuwait man sentenced to 10 years for posting insulting comments on Twitter

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[JURIST] A Kuwait court on Monday sentenced a man to ten years of imprisonment for posting insulting and defaming comments about the Prophet Muhammad [BBC backgrounder] and theSunni Muslim [BBC backgrounder] rulers of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain on Twitter[media website]. Judge Hisham Abdullah found 26-year-old Hamad al-Naqi, a Shia Muslim [BBC backgrounder], guilty on all charges of endangering state security and ordered the maximum sentence. He was found guilty of having insulted the prophet Muhammad, his family and companions, as well as the religion itself. Al-Naqi had pleaded not guilty [BBC report] at the beginning of his trial which opened last month, arguing that he did not post the comments on the website and that his Twitter account was hacked. Additionally, al-Naqi's lawyer argued that even if his client wrote the comments on Twitter, he could not be found guilty for charges of endangering state security. However, Abdullah found him guilty of misusing his cellphone to publicize and spread his comments. Additionally, the judge reasoned that he gave the maximum verdict to deter others.
A similar case arose last year when two men were detained for posting messages on the Internet criticizing Middle East rulers on social media websites, Twitter and YouTube[media website]. The Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] called [JURIST report] on the government to immediately release them, calling the detention merely an "illegal effort to punish him and intimidate others who might dare be critical about Kuwait's fellow Gulf monarchs." Such practices are not only bound to Kuwait. In April of last year, an Egyptian military courtconvicted [JURIST report] blogger Maikel Nabil and sentenced him to three years in prison for criticizing the army and raising questions over reform in the wake of revolution.

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