A court in Kuwait has sentenced a Shiite Muslim lawmaker to 14 and a half years in prison for insulting the ruling families in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.
The court on Wednesday sentenced Abdulhameed Dashti to 11 years and six months for insulting the Al Saud family. He was also handed down another three years for insulting Bahrain’s Al Khalifah royal family in another case.
Dashti strongly criticized the Bahraini regime’s repression of the opposition. He also slammed as an "invasion" Saudi Arabia’s deployment of troops in 2011 to Bahrain to assist the Al Khalifah regime in its crackdown on the 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.
Dashti also censured the Saudi regime over its deadly campaign against Yemen.
In May 2015, the Kuwaiti lawmaker called for the foreign minister to be questioned over Kuwait’s involvement in the Saudi-led airstrikes on Yemen, which he said violated the constitution. The parliament, however, rejected his request.
The regime in Riyadh started its aggression of Yemen on March 26, 2015, in a bid to reinstate the resigned president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a staunch ally of Riyadh, and crush the Houthi Ansarullah movement. More than 9,400 people have been killed ever since.
Dashti was sentenced in absentia as he has been living abroad for the past four months. He had told the Kuwaiti parliament that he was receiving medical treatment in Britain.
source : abna24.com
