The move came following high tension during a National Assembly session in which several Shiite MPs and their supporters – notably MPs Nabeel Al-Fadl and Mohammad Al-Juwaihel – walked out of the session to protest the Assembly’s decision to halt debate on lifting the immunity of several MPs.
The action also came on the eve of a planned debate of the grilling filed by another Shiite MP Saleh Ashour against Prime Minister HH Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah, who has accepted to debate the grilling in an open session, thus becoming the first Kuwaiti premier to be grilled in public.
Former premier Shiekh Nasser Mohammad Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah was grilled several times during his five-year tenure but all of them were debated in closed sessions at his request.
Qallaf said “insulting the prophet (PBUH), Ayesha and companions is totally unacceptable,” adding “I learned that the account of tweeter Hamad Al-Naqi is hacked and I hope to check on that to avoid further problems”.
Fellow Shiite MP Adnan Abdulsamad asked the interior minister to quickly take legal action against the real criminal who insulted the Prophet (PBUH). He said it is necessary to make sure the true culprit stands trial as he wanted to spread strife in the society, bur warned “those who accuse the innocent without evidence should be held to account”.
MP Abdulhamid Dashti, also a Shiite, said “everyone knows that the circumstances are favorable for executing external conspiracies to take over Kuwait”, adding that the whole issue is fabricated and “we demand that the person responsible for this issue be charged with state security charges including treason”.
Qallaf based his brief grilling against the information minister on two major issues, both related to the application of the audiovisual law by the ministry on local radio and television stations. The first and most important issue relates to the information minister’s action by referring local TV station SCOPE to the public prosecution in a swift move last week after the station aired an interview with Qallaf himself which was broadly criticized by large sections of the society.
During the interview, Qallaf reportedly criticized the chief of Kuwait’s major bedouin tribe – the Awazem – Falah bin Jame, who is a highly respected personality in the country. Qallaf has categorically denied that he intended to insult the tribal chief and made a public apology if the interview was seen as critical of bin Jame.
In the grilling, Qallaf accused the information minister of relenting to political pressure by MPs and activists that forced him to take his swift legal action against SCOPE “even before watching the interview to decide if it contained any abusive material”. Qallaf also claimed that the information minister violated the constitution by not applying the law in a fair way against all violators and took action only against media outlets critical to the parliamentary majority (which was the opposition in the previous parliament).
The lawmaker cited the ministry action against Al-Dar newspaper, a leading Shiite newspaper, while the ministry ignored violations by other television stations and newspapers. Following the interview last week, a group of Awazem tribesmen attacked SCOPE offices and damaged some equipment in protest against the interview.
Regarding the other issue, Qallaf claimed that he has informed the information minister of a local television station that was engaged in money laundering, adding that he provided some evidence to the minister.
He added that the minister failed to take any action against the station despite the gravity of the accusations. The new grilling is expected to be listed on the agenda of the Assembly after two weeks and could be debated immediately if the minister does not use his constitutional right by demanding a two-week delay, which will be granted automatically.
It will be the second grilling in the new Assembly elected just less than two months ago. MP Mohammad Al-Juwaihel has also vowed to grill the interior minister over a variety of alleged violations but he did not set an exact date for filing the grilling.
The grilling of the prime minister is scheduled to be debated today will be the first grilling in the new Assembly. The grilling was submitted by MP Ashour more than two weeks ago on allegations that the government failed to take adequate actions on two major corruption scandals – illegal bank deposits involving 12 former MPs and Ashour himself and allegations the former premier transferred millions of dollars of public funds into his private bank accounts overseas.
The debate will be given priority over all the issues and is expected to consume the whole Assembly session today. According to the Assembly’s internal charter, the griller will be given two hours to explain his arguments and the prime minister will be given an equal duration to refute the allegations.
After that, each one will be given half an hour for further remarks and responses. After that, two supporters and two opponents of the grilling will be allowed to speak alternately for 15 minutes each. The premier will then be given time for closing remarks. The grilling can lead to a motion of non-cooperation against the prime minister if 10 MPs sign the motion, otherwise the grilling will end. Voting on the motion will take place eight days later.
In yesterday’s regular Assembly session, minority MPs clashed several times with the speaker and some MPs from the majority over a variety of issues that at one stage led about eight MPs to walk out of the session.
The problem began when several Shiite MPs besides Juwaihel and Fadl demanded to speak on requests by the public prosecution to lift the immunity of several MPs so they could be questioned and tried, mostly on press offenses.
The speaker prevented them to speak as the Assembly voted to halt the debate on the issue. Then, they protested strongly and walked out of the session. Despite that, the session was one of the most productive so far as MPs voted to approve amendments on the antitrust law aimed at breaking monopolies, approved a law to set up a KD 50 million fund to provide interest-free loans to Kuwaiti students studying outside at their own expense and approved in the second round of voting a law on the annual program of the development plan.
