KUWAIT CITY, 25 August 2004 — An Islamist scholar was freed without bail after being questioned for a few hours over allegations he incited youngsters to fight against US forces in Iraq, legal sources said.
Sheikh Jaber Al-Jalahma was questioned after some activists facing charges of recruiting fighters for Iraq mentioned his name while under interrogation, the sources said.
He and his defense lawyer Abdulrahman Al-Rasheedi denied the charges and told the prosecutor that the confessions of the suspects were taken under duress, the sources added.
A second scholar, Sheikh Hamed Al-Ali, the former chief of the Salafi Movement, is expected to be questioned today on the same charges, the sources said.
Kuwaiti security forces arrested some 16 suspects in a crackdown last month on a group of Islamist activists for allegedly recruiting fighters for Iraq.
Five of the suspects have been released on bail. Four more suspects, including the spokesman of the Association of Victims of Torture and Arbitrary Arrest, Khaled Al-Dossari, remain at large.
The suspects’ lawyers have alleged that the crackdown stems from US pressure on Kuwaiti authorities.
Islamic Affairs Minister Abdullah Al-Maatuk said last week that teams of experts and religious scholars had been formed to draw up plans to combat extremism and terrorism which had reached a “dangerous level”.
MP Blasts Olympics Coverage
A Kuwaiti Islamist lawmaker has criticized state-run television for showing women competitors at the Athens Olympics in “revealing and indecent” dress, branding its coverage a “great catastrophe.”
Awwad Barad Al-Enezi rejected the “shameless and undignified acts of Kuwait TV by showing women in revealing dress under the pretext of covering” the Olympic Games, according to a statement released yesterday.
The MP, known for his ultra-conservative stance, described the coverage as a “great catastrophe” which is “adversely affecting the morals of Kuwaiti society.”
He also threatened action against Information Minister Mohammad Abulhassan and other senior officials.
During the previous Olympics in Sydney, Islamist MP Waleed Al-Tabtabai called on Kuwait television to stop broadcasting women’s beach volleyball, diving and synchronized swimming, branding them indecent.
Kuwaiti Islamist MPs commonly criticize any form of entertainment that involves the mixing of the sexes.
Sporting events in the Gulf Arab countries are the preserve of men, although Kuwait has for the first time sent a lone woman sprinter to Athens.
