Kuwait issues arrest warrant for ex-MP who 'insulted' UAE

Prosecutors in Kuwait have issued an arrest warrant against Mubarak Dweilah for allegedly “insulting” the United Arab Emirates. The member of the political bureau of the Islamic Constitutional Movement, Hadas, made his apparently contentious remarks on Al-Majlis television.

The Kuwaiti Ministry of Foreign Affairs filed a complaint with the Attorney General accusing Dweilah of “insulting” Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi. According to the official Kuwait news agency, government sources said that they are “extremely displeased” that a “sisterly state” and its leaders were insulted by the former MP.

“Why do Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, hate Sunni Islam and why have they been fighting it over the past few years?” asked Dweilah in the interview in question. He pointed out that not one of Kuwait’s Muslim Brotherhood members knows the secret behind this hostile attitude against the movement. “Mohammed bin Zayed is the one who created this spirit of hatred towards the Muslim Brotherhood and all that is Sunni,” he claimed.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, Dweilah said that he is surprised by the “incitement campaign” against him on the pretext that he insulted Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed. “I was only answering a question in a television interview about the reason for his hostility against the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic Sunni stream.” He added that since the interview he has been “banned” from entering the UAE.