KUWAIT CITY, 22 October 2004 — Kuwaiti Islamist deputies plan to question Information Minister Mohammad Abolhassan for allegedly failing to protect morality and control music concerts, a senior Islamist MP said yesterday.
“There is a defect in the ministry’s performance in protecting morality and the minister’s supervision over the media is lacking and negative,” said Waleed Al-Tabtabai.
“The grilling is ready ... It will be submitted after the month of Ramadan,” which ends on Nov. 14,” Tabtabai, who is known for his morality campaigns and calls to observe strict Islamic rules, told reporters.
“We (parliamentarians) have seen no serious intention by the minister or any ministerial bodies to impose any regulations, for concerts or TV programs,” Tabtabai said referring to programs he has condemned as “indecent”. Abolhassan came under fire earlier this year for allowing the staging of a pop concert by young stars of the Lebanese reality TV show Star Academy, which led the government to ban all forms of dance at concerts and requiring families and unaccompanied men to sit separately.
Tabtabai said fellow Islamist MPs Awwad Barad Al-Enezi and Faisal Al-Muslim would join him in the questioning.
Tabtabai said the new rules were not being strictly implemented by the Information Ministry, prompting them to initiate the grilling. The quiz is likely to be backed by the Sunni Islamic Bloc, which consists of about 15 lawmakers in the 50-member house. It could lead to a no-confidence vote, which, if passed, would mean the automatic dismissal of the minister.
After several years of banning public concerts, Kuwait has recently resumed granting permits for well-known Arab pop singers despite opposition from Islamic MPs.
Islamists have also asked that unrelated men and women be seated separately at concerts by Arab singers held during a festival each February. Over the last year Bahrain has also seen Islamist protests against pop concerts. Some protests have turned violent. One outcry led to the cancellation of the Arabic version of reality TV show Big Brother that was being filmed in the Gulf state.
Meanwhile, Kuwait plans to set up a new company to manage a proposed $7-billion project that has been stalled for over a decade, the emirate’s energy minister said yesterday. The company will manage the development of the northern oilfields in cooperation with international oil firms to double its output to 900,000 barrels per day (bpd), Sheikh Ahmad Fahd Al-Sabah said.
