KUWAIT CITY, 10 May 2005 — The founders of Kuwait’s first political party, who were charged with plotting to overthrow the government, could face a jail term of up to 15 years if convicted, their defense team said yesterday.
“The maximum penalty for the charges as stipulated by Kuwait’s penal code is a jail term of up to 15 years,” Nasser Al-Duwailah, defense lawyer for the Ummah (Nation) Party, told a news conference.
All 15 founders of the party have been questioned by the public prosecution for violating the press and public gatherings laws and for “forming a party to change the government and undermine the country’s political and economic orders”, the party’s Secretary-General Hakem Al-Mutairi said.
Mutairi said the founders have been released on bail pending the completion of the case that “could either be sent to court or shelved”. Islamists in January took the unprecedented step of launching the Ummah Party, the first of its kind in the Gulf region, saying it intends to promote pluralism and a peaceful rotation of power.
Mutairi denied the accusations and insisted the party does not intend to overthrow the government but will “work through peaceful means to achieve the rotation of power ... to eventually establish an elected parliamentary government”.
Kuwait was the first Gulf state to have an elected Parliament and a constitution in 1962, one year after independence.
After its establishment, the party sent letters to Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, the speaker of Parliament and lawmakers urging them to amend Kuwaiti law to explicitly permit such parties.
Kuwaiti law makes no reference to political parties. Mutairi said the party has prepared a draft law regulating the establishment of political parties and that a number of lawmakers have accepted in principle to submit it to Parliament. Many liberal and Islamist political groupings — but not parties — operate openly in the emirate.
