MP Musallam Al-Barrak said after the meeting that the questioning of the information minister has become a necessity and the timing of the grilling will be determined within the next two days. He said that the minister pretends that there is not enough power in the Audiovisual Law to close down private TV stations, but the reality is that the law is sufficient for such actions.
MP Harbash told reporters that during a meeting with a parliamentary committee on Sunday, the minister said that state-run Kuwait TV gave archived footage to Al-Sour TV "because it is a licensed Kuwaiti TV station". Harbash said the statement contradicts what the minister said in the Assembly last week, that the station was not licenced to operate in the country.
MP Khaled Al-Adwah said the lawmakers have decided to target "corrupt media" only through the law and the constitution. He said that the minister must perform his responsibilities by cracking down on the Al-Sour and Scope TV stations and others like them, otherwise he should be prepared to face constitutional measures. Adwah also said that he learned that information ministry officials had warned the minister about Al-Sour TV station’s intentions to undermine national unity but he failed to take any action.
MP Waleed Al-Tabtabaei said the grilling of the information minister is "inevitable" if he did not close down the controversial TV stations, adding that MPs who attended the meeting kept their options open including the possibility of grilling the prime minister. He said they have decided to wait for a few days to see what actions the government will take and then decide their next course of action.
The public prosecution yesterday continued its interrogation of Mohammad Al-Juwaihel, the owner of Al-Sour channel, for the second day in a row. Juwaihel, who aired the program deemed offensive to tribes in Kuwait, was arrested last Thursday on his return from Egypt.
Meanwhile, the owner of Scope TV Fajr Al-Saeed said yesterday that she intends to sue those who accused the station of being corrupt. She also denied reports that the information minister is scared of taking action against the station because it has some sensitive footage of an interview with him about two years ago. Saeed said that the station had voluntarily decided not to air parts of the interview deemed sensitive and not because of a request by the minister. The interview was given to the station after Sheikh Ahmad was forced to resign following a grilling in the Assembly in 2007.
In another development, MPs Saadoun Hammad and Mohammad Al-Huwaila yesterday said that the government has not fulfilled promises to move or close a number of factories near Umm Al-Haiman area that have been blamed for pollution. Last month, the MPs had warned to grill the prime minister if the factories were not moved or closed. The government had promised to close six factories and move another 19 but the MPs said so far nothing has been done.
