Cairo October 22, 2012

ANHRI condemns the excessive violence to address the peaceful demonstrations that took place in Kuwait on Sunday, October 21, to express their rejection to the changing of the election law related to the National Assembly, which resulted in several injuries and arrests among the protesters.

Kuwait had witnessed on Sunday a peaceful demonstration calling for not to change the election law in the country. Several political and youth movements and the majority bloc of the dissolved National Assembly have called for it. The security forces have addressed such demonstration by force, through imposing a security cordon around the assembly points and dispersing number of assembles in these areas using batons and tear gas.

These peaceful marches have gathered again before, who are estimated by 150 thousand protesters, the towers of Kuwait. The suppression intensified by security forces backed by (special forces – National Guard – General Security), which participated in addressing this peaceful demonstration. That led to many injuries among the demonstrators ranging from serious and simple injuries. Due to the use of batons, rubber bullets, smoke bombs, sound and tear gas bombs. It was reported that that there a dead protester who is “Khalid Munir Al-Mutairi,”. ANHRI was ‘t able verify such information, as well as many arrests, which included a number of journalists and political activists, including:

Former MP Waleed Al-Tabtabai, the activists “Khaled Fadalah” , “Rashid Fadalah” , the blogger “Abdelaziz bou-Himd” , the hournalist “Anwar Alfkr” , journalist “Fahd Qabandi”, and the lawyer “Meshaal Al-Mutairi,” as well as other arrests included citizens which exceeded 100 demonstrators.

ANHRI said that “Such suppressive acts in dealing with the peaceful demonstrators and opinion makers, eliminates the remaining portion of the Kuwaiti respect for the freedoms and the means of democracy and the modern state, which Kuwait used to enjoy until recently. It proves at the same time that Kuwait did not learn from the experiences of the countries of the Arab spring, which has proved it beyond the reasonable doubt the failure of the security solutions in dealing with the demonstrators”.

ANHRI called for the immediate release of all those who were arrested due to expressing their opinions and peacefully demonstrate, nothing but but for calling for freedom and democracy in the country.