Kuwait Cracks Down on Dissent, Twitter

Two years after the start of the Arab Spring, the political battle in Kuwait is growing increasingly more tense over Twitter. At the current rate, Kuwait will soon be able to compete with neighboring Bahrain in the number of prosecutions brought against Twitter users. Within weeks of the February 2011 uprising, Bahrain had arrested large numbers of people using Twitter and Facebook to spread their messages. Meanwhile, Kuwaiti authorities also apparently decided to intimidate their critics and others through the arrest and trolling of influential Twitter users. In addition, tens of protesters have been arrested during the opposition’s dignity marches and in demonstrations by the country’s stateless community. The government, it seems, is no longer interested in defending Kuwait's reputation as the ‘most democratic’ state in the Gulf.

Early Cases: Politics and Religion

A few days before President Hosni Mubarak was toppled in Egypt, the Kuwaiti Interior Ministry made its first move against online free speech by summoning and interrogating Twitter user Mishari Buyabis. While in detention, officials questioned him about his political support for Ahmed al-Saadon, the head of the opposition. The incident stirred emotions of anger and was controversial enough to push parliamentarians into a confrontation with the government. Since then, Buyabis has become a public figure, appearing as a guest on TV shows and being paid by corporations for his posts.

In a sign of rising sectarian tensions, the Kuwaiti government launched a series of Twitter- and religion-related arrests shortly after the uprisings in Bahrain and Syria erupted. The first case was in June 2011 against Nasser Abul, a Shiite Twitter user and supporter of the Bahraini uprising. Abul faced charges of contempt for insulting Sunni beliefs and the Bahraini and Saudi royal families. In September 2011, a judge found him guilty of contempt, but ordered him released for time served.