Assembly panel visits ex-MP Barrak at jail
No quick solution for sports dilemma
KUWAIT: National Assembly human rights committee yesterday visited leading opposition figure and former MP Mussallam Al-Barrak at the central jail where he is spending a two-year jail term for insulting the Amir. The meeting with Barrak was part of a visit by the committee members to inspect the situation prisoners at the jail and examine if there were any human rights violations. Member of the committee MP Waleed AlTabtabaei said he and others met with Barrak for 90 minutes and he posted a selfie photo with him on Tabtabaei’s Twitter account.
Barrak has already served most of the jail term and is due to be freed in April. He was jailed after he was convicted for undermining the authority of the Amir during a speech at a public rally in October 2012. In that speech, Barrak rejected attempts by the government to amend the voting system and insisted that the amendment would result in electing a rubber stamp assembly. Several other opposition activists are also serving jail terms for violating the law and undermining the authority of the Amir through comments on Twitter and other social media. Member of the panel MP Jamaan Al-Harbash said the visit was very important and revealed a number of facts. He did not elaborate.
Opposition figures
In another development, MP Harbash charged in a press conference a number of pro-government lawmakers of attempting to prevent opposition figures from contesting the election by opposing the amendment of a controversial law passed by the previous assembly.
The lawmaker said that a clause barring people convicted of “honor and honesty” crimes is so loose that can deprive a group of politicians from public office and was already used to exclude former MP Bader Al-Dahoum from contesting the November polls.
Harbash said that those who think that former MPs like Barrak and Faisal AlMuslim will be politically finished if they were banned from contesting the polls are mistaken and they will see the impact of Barrak after he leaves jail.
He said the proposed amendment to the law does not mean that all those convicted in those crimes should be allowed to run for public office, but at the same time it is not acceptable to bar Dahoum from polls while those who accepted bribes are described as honest people. The lawmaker specifically targeted MP Saadoun Hammad for opposing the amendment, adding that Hammad will not be able to exclude ex-MP Muslim whatever he did.
Kuwait’s suspension
In another development, head of the assembly sports and youth committee MP Saadoun Hammad said yesterday that the panel has agreed to send a letter to the International Olympic Committee and football controlling body FIFA to ask them to lift the suspension on Kuwait until the panel has studied a new sports law.
The statement appears to be falling well short of the demands made by the IOC earlier this week that Kuwait must amend its sport law, re-instate dissolved sports federation and withdraw cases against international sport bodies in courts to be able to consider lifting the suspension.
Hammad told reporters after a meeting for the committee that the government submitted a 74-article draft sports law and the committee will start debating it on January 9. The committee yesterday heard the opinions of a number of sports figures who support or oppose the Minister of Information and Youth Sheikh Salman Al-Humoud Al-Sabah.
Former head of Al-Tadamun sports club Yousef Al-Baidan, who attended the meeting, told reporters that the new government’s draft sports law will not lead to lifting the suspension and has to be studied by the IOC first to take its opinion.
He accused the minister of worsening the situation by dissolving the Kuwait Olympic Committee and several sports federations which the IOC and FIFA have strongly criticized. In the meantime, reports said that MP Waleed Al-Tabtabaei is already preparing to file to grill Sheikh Salman and he is expected to file the request next week.
MP Majed Al-Mutairi meanwhile submitted a proposal calling on authorities to allow Syrians living in Kuwait to bring their families into Kuwait because of the deteriorating situation in Syria. The lawmaker said that the Syrian people have been subjected to a terrorist destructive war by the regime and Kuwait should help them.