A Kuwaiti court has sentenced a man to two years in prison for insulting the country’s ruler on Twitter, as the Gulf Arab state cracks down on criticism of the authorities on social media.
According to the verdict yesterday, published by online newspaper Alaan, a tweet written by Rashid Saleh al-Anzi in October “stabbed the rights and powers of the emir”, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah.
Anzi, who has 5,700 Twitter followers, was expected to appeal, according to a lawyer following the case who asked not to be named.
Kuwait has been taking a firmer line on comments on the internet. In June 2012, a man was sentenced to 10 years in prison after he was convicted of endangering state security by insulting the prophet Mohammad and the rulers of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain on social media. – (Reuters)