A Kuwaiti court on Thursday acquitted Kuwaiti-American journalist Ahmed Shihab-Eldin after he was detained for 52 days amid a censorship campaign imposed by the authorities of the Persian Gulf country over the Iran war, an NGO and the reporter’s family’s legal team reported.
“All details are still being gathered, but his international legal team confirms that he has been declared innocent of the charges and his imminent release is expected,” Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC’s office, the legal team for Shihab-Eldin’s sisters, revealed in a statement.
The note, which does not indicate what charges the journalist was accused of, stresses that Shihab-Eldin had not been seen in public since March 2 in Kuwait, where he was visiting his family, and that he was arrested the following day.
“We are relieved that, after 52 days in detention, Ahmed has been declared innocent of all charges. We are now focused on ensuring our client’s freedom and safety, and will provide further details as soon as they are confirmed,” the source added.
For its part, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) celebrated the reporter’s acquittal in another statement after nearly two months of detention and recalled that “Ahmed’s freedom and safety” are the organization’s top priority.
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On April 14, the CPJ explored the possibility that Kuwaiti authorities arrested him for “spreading false information, endangering national security, and misusing his mobile phone.” These accusations, which the NGO described as “vague and overly broad,” are commonly used in the Persian Gulf country to silence independent journalists like Shihab-Eldin, who has collaborated with international media such as The New York Times, PBS, and Al Jazeera.
Before his arrest in March, the reporter “commented on publicly available videos and images related to the Iran war,” according to the CPJ. “Among his recent posts was a geolocated video, verified by CNN, showing the crash of a US fighter jet near a US air base in Kuwait,” the organization stated.
It also recalled that his detention occurred amid “increasingly strict press censorship” in the Gulf States, and in Kuwait, where the Ministry of Interior warned on March 2 against recording or disseminating videos or information related to Iranian attacks against Arab countries. The US military acknowledged that same day that, early that morning, three fighter jets “were mistakenly shot down by Kuwaiti air defenses,” but that their six crew members managed to eject safely.
Kuwait enacted a law on March 15 aimed at safeguarding and protecting the supreme interests of military authorities. Article 26 imposes prison sentences of up to 10 years on anyone who “disseminates news, publishes statements, or propagates false rumors related to military entities.”
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