Former Kuwait lawmaker gets longer jail term for insulting Saudi Arabia
A Kuwaiti appeals court has sentenced an outspoken former member of parliament to 10 years in jail for insulting the ruling families in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.
Abdulhameed Dashti was sentenced on Thursday in absentia for making comments deemed offensive to Saudi Arabia and Bahraini regimes.
The new term raises to 42 years and six months the total jail terms handed to Dashti. In previous cases, the ex-lawmaker was also convicted of insulting Kuwait's ruler.
Dashti is known in Kuwait for his open criticism of the Bahraini regime’s repression of the opposition. He has also slammed as an "invasion" Saudi Arabia’s 2011 deployment of troops to Bahrain to assist the Al Khalifah regime in its crackdown on peaceful anti-regime protests.
Since February 14, 2011, thousands of anti-regime protesters have held numerous demonstrations on an almost daily basis in Bahrain, calling for the Al Khalifah family to relinquish power. Scores of people have been killed and hundreds of others injured or arrested in the crackdown.
The outspoken politician has also criticized Riyadh for its military campaign against Yemen, where the Saudi military aggression has left more than 11,000 people dead since it began in March 2015.
In May 2015, the Kuwaiti lawmaker called for the foreign minister to be questioned over Kuwait’s involvement in the Saudi aggression against Yemen, which he said violated the constitution. Parliament, however, rejected his request.
He has been living abroad for the past eight months, receiving medicate treatment in Britain.
Kuwait’s National Assembly revoked Dashti’s parliamentary immunity last March.
Dashti tried to register to contest last month's snap polls but electoral authorities and the court barred him.
Reacting to the latest ruling, Dashti said that he was innocent of charges leveled against him, and noted that charges against him violated the right to free expression.
"Could anyone believe that I received jail sentences of 42 years and six months for just expressing my opinion," Dashti said in a post on social network website Twitter.
In previous posts on Twitter, the former lawmaker said he had expected sentences that could amount to 100 years in prison.
In recent years, dozens of activists have been jailed for insulting Arab monarchies of the Persian Gulf region. Several others are still waiting trial for similar charges.
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