The Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) calls on the authorities in Kuwait to release prominent Bedoon community rights defender, Mohammed Al-Barghash, who is now serving a three-year prison sentence recently imposed against him for his peaceful human rights activities.
Informed local sources confirmed to the GCHR that, on 21 February 2024, Al-Barghash surrendered himself to the authorities, who transferred him to the Central Prison, where he is currently detained.
On 31 January 2024, the Court of Appeal issued its ruling against Al-Barghash for a period of three years in prison with hard labour, after convicting him of the charges brought against him, namely, spreading fake news, harming the state’s reputation, and misusing a telephone device.
In addition, at dawn on 08 February 2024, eight members of the General Department of Criminal Investigation raided Al-Barghash’s house and investigated his wife, who holds Iraqi citizenship, in front of her three children. They then arrested her on the grounds that her residency in the country had expired. She was later released from Abdullah Al-Mubarak Police Station.
For more information about his case, see here.
Al-Barghash belongs to the Bedoon community in Kuwait. He founded the National Bloc of Kuwaiti Bedoons, which he also heads, and which has organised a number of events to shed light on the chronic problems that the Bedoon community suffer from and demand radical solutions to them.
GCHR condemns in the strongest terms the continued targeting of the prominent defender of the rights of the Bedoon community, Mohammed Al-Barghash, and the arbitrary sentence to imprison him, due to his peaceful human rights activities. GCHR also denounces the security forces’ raid on his home, the intimidation of his family, including his three children, and the arbitrary arrest of his wife despite the fact that no judicial order was issued against her.
GCHR calls on the government of Kuwait to immediately and unconditionally release Bedoon rights defender Mohammad Al-Barghash and to stop targeting him. GCHR also calls on the government of Kuwait to work hard to grant the Bedoon community their basic human rights, in addition to ensuring respect for the civil and human rights of citizens, especially freedom of expression.
