Kuwaiti Man Gets 10 Years For Insulting Islam on Twitter

26-year-old Hamad al-Naqi, the Kuwaiti man who has been sitting in jail for the past three months (since his arrest) for insulting Mohammed, Aisha (his 9-year-old wife) and Mohammed's companions via Twitter, will spend the next ten years in jail for those transgressions. Other charges included "spreading false news that undermined Kuwait's image abroad" (as though that takes much), and for insulting Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

According to the court, al-Naqi had "endangered state security" with those insults, although I'm not quite sure how.

Khaled al-Shatti, his lawyer, seems overly positive. He told AFP:

“We plan to challenge the ruling against my client Hamad al-Naqi in the appeals court and we are very optimistic that the higher court will cancel the sentence."

Al-Naqi claims his account was hacked, which is a definite possibility, but the court didn't buy that excuse.

He could have been sentenced to death, since Kuwait recently passed a law approving the death sentence for 'cursing God'- and naturally there were those demanding it- but he lucked out that the bill has not yet been implemented. He did, however, receive the maximum sentence for his criminal tweets.

Our jails would be overflowing if we had the same laws as Kuwait.

Kuwait Parliament Approves Death Penalty For 'Cursing God'

Jail time for insulting Islam isn't enough for the Kuwaiti government, they now want your head, so the parliament just passed a provisional amendment that mandates the death penalty for blasphemy. Now if you curse God, Mohammad or his wives you'll pay with your life.

Forty-six MPs, including cabinet ministers, voted for the key amendments that will come into effect only after another round of voting and government approval. The second and final vote will take place in two weeks.

Four Shiite MPs voted against the law, a pro-Shiite Sunni lawmaker abstained, while two MPs refused to vote.

Shiite MPs have demanded that the new amendments also enforce the death penalty for anyone who curses their sect’s 12 revered Imams, but the Sunni- dominated parliament rejected their requests.

Apparently, they want to take major steps backwards by joining their Saudi and Pakistani brothers in instituting the death penalty.  The move was prompted by the arrest of a Shiite man, Hamad al-Naqi, who allegedly cursed Mohammad (and others) on his twitter account, although he denies it. Al-Naqi has yet to go to trial, but I'm sure those MPs would be pretty darn happy to get this law in place before he gets his day in court.