CPJ protests closure of Al-Jazeera television station
(CPJ/IFEX) – CPJ is strongly protesting the closure of the Qatar-based television station, Al-Jazeera. CPJ has learned that, on 19 June 1999, the Minister of Information, Youssef Muhammad al-Samait issued a decree ordering the shut down of Al-Jazeera’s Kuwait office and prohibiting the station from reporting from Kuwait because of alleged violations of professional ethics. […]
Newspaper suspended
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF is protesting the one-month suspension of the monthly “Al Hadath”, for publishing an allegedly “indecent” article. The court also sentenced Madi Al-Khamis, the newspaper’s editor-in-chief, and Saad Al-Enezi, the editor of the article, to pay a fine of US$150 each. Recommended Action Send appeals to the Information Minister: suggesting that this sentence […]
Journalist charged with treason
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF is warning the government of Kuwait against any measures taken to censor reports on Israel. On 9 January 1999, the Parliament (Majliss) called for the trial of Hamed Bouyabes, a Kuwaiti journalist who went to Israel to perform his job, on charges of “treason.” Recommended Action Send appeals to the Emir: drawing […]
Journalist sentenced to three-month prison term
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF is protesting the prison term given to the journalist Fouad al-Hashem. According to RSF’s sources, on 26 December 1998, al-Hashem was sentenced to three months in prison by the Kuweit City magistrate’s court for an article he wrote in June 1997 in the daily “Al-Watan”. Al-Hashem’s article was a jocular comment about […]
New draft law threatens right of information
(RSF/IFEX) — On 15 September 1998, RSF protested the draft law submitted for approval by the official committee in charge of satellite censorship. RSF believes that this law could pose a grave threat to the right of information. The risk lies in the imprecise terms of the draft law, which could be misused to censor […]
Offices of newspaper ransacked
(RSF/IFEX) – According to information made available by RSF on 20 August 1998, on 18 August, about forty men entered and ransacked the offices of the daily “Al-Qabas” in Kuwait City (the capital city). The attackers, members of the Salab tribe, were reputedly reacting to a photograph and accompanying article they felt to be defamatory. […]
Two newspaper journalists each sentenced to six months in prison; newspaper ordered shut down for one week
(CPJ/IFEX) – On 24 June 1998, a criminal court sentenced Muhammad Jasim al-Saqr, editor-in-chief of the leading daily newspaper “Al-Qabas”, and Ibrahim Marzouk, a free-lance journalist with the same paper who is based in Egypt, to six months in prison in connection with a joke published in the 5 January edition of “Al-Qabas”. The four-line […]