"Liberated" Kuwait

"The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a one-year prison sentence given to Mohammed Abdulqader al-Jassem, a Kuwaiti writer and journalist, on Monday. A criminal court convicted al-Jassem of criminal defamation in connection with an article he published on his personal news blog, Al-Mizan. The case is only one of 18 that the government has filed against the journalist in the past year.  The court decision was effective immediately, his daughter, Sumayah al-Jassem, told CPJ. She said police arrested her father at 8:30 p.m. on Monday, a few hours after he was convicted; he was scheduled to appear on Al-Jazeera that evening.  In his year-old opinion piece, al-Jassem criticized Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammad al-Ahmad al-Sabah for allowing Iranian intelligence to interfere in Kuwaiti politics. In the piece, al-Jassem expressed that he understood his work may result in punishment: "I know the peril of this article," he wrote. "I know that Sheikh Nasser will continue in doing whatever he can against me. But I will not care; the interest and dignity of my country are more important to me than my own life.""