October 19, 1999
His Highness Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmed al-Sabah
Emir of the State of Kuwait
Al-Diwan al-Amiri
Al-Safat
Kuwait City, Kuwait
Your Highness:
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is gravely concerned about Sunday’s decision by the Council of Ministers to suspend the daily Al-Siyassafor a period of five days.
Al-Siyassabegan serving its suspension on Monday. The decision came in response to Al-Siyassa’sOctober 16 front-page story quoting Hamed al-Ali, a local Islamist figure who is secretary general of the Salafiyya Movement (haraka salafiyya).
In the article, al-Ali spoke of an alleged “secular conspiracy in the Gulf” and indirectly criticized Your Highness for granting women the right to vote and to participate in politics. According to Kuwaiti journalists, al-Ali’s comments had been covered widely in the private press, though Al-Siyassawas the only paper to display the story prominently on its front page.
The censorship of Al-Siyassaviolates the most fundamental norms for press freedom, as guaranteed under international law. We remind Your Highness that Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees journalists the right to “seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
On a more positive note, CPJ welcomes the release from prison yesterday of Dr. Ahmad Baghdadi, who was pardoned by Your Highness that same day. Baghdadi, head of the political science department at Kuwait University and a regular contributor to Al-Siyassa,was jailed on October 4 after a Kuwaiti court sentenced him to one month in prison for allegedly defaming Islam and the Prophet Muhammad in a 1996 article that he wrote for the Kuwait University student magazine Al-Shoula.
CPJ hopes that Baghdadi’s imprisonment will serve as an impetus for the reform of Kuwaiti laws, such as the press and publications law, that are used to prosecute editors and reporters in response to their published work. As long as laws that criminalize expression remain on the books in Kuwait, journalists such as Baghdadi will remain vulnerable to prosecution, and possibly imprisonment, for practicing their internationally guaranteed right to free expression.
CPJ, a non-governmental organization of journalists devoted to upholding press freedom worldwide, respectfully calls on Your Highness to ensure that Al-Siyassamay resume publication immediately and without further interference from Kuwaiti authorities. We also urge Your Highness to take a leading role in advocating legislative reforms that will guarantee the right of Kuwaiti journalists to work freely.
I thank you for your attention to these urgent matters and look forward to your reply.
Sincerely,
Ann K. Cooper
Executive Director
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His Highness Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmed al-Sabah
Emir of the State of Kuwait
Al-Diwan al-Amiri
Al-Safat
Kuwait City, Kuwait