AFP/Kuwait City

Kuwait’s lower court yesterday upheld a government decision to shut leading newspaper Al-Watan which has been highly critical of the government, a lawyer for the paper said.
“The court rejected our challenge to two decisions by the ministries of commerce and information to revoke the commercial and media licences of Al-Watan,” attorney Rashed al-Radaan told AFP.
In January, the ministry of commerce and industry revoked the commercial licence of Al-Watan saying it had violated minimum capital requirements and shut the newspaper.
Under Kuwaiti law, the commercial licences of companies with losses worth more than 75% of their capital are cancelled.
The information ministry later revoked the media licence of the newspaper.
“The judge did not accept our arguments that the commerce ministry is not authorised under the law to revoke the licence of a shareholding company. We will study details of the ruling and file an appeal at the court of appeals within a few days,” Radaan said.
Al-Watan, one of the largest dailies in Kuwait, is owned by former oil minister Sheikh Ali Khalifa al-Sabah, a member of the ruling family, and is managed by his son Sheikh Khalifa.
The newspaper has traditionally supported the government, except in the past two years when it adopted a tougher line.
Meanwhile, an appeal court has increased by two years the four-year jail sentence of an activist who tweeted comments deemed offensive to Saudi Arabia.
Saleh al-Saeed was sentenced to four years in jail in December by a lower court for posting the comments on Twitter.
The lower court charged that because of the 16 tweets he had posted online in October he had endangered Saudi-Kuwaiti relations and undermined the kingdom.