Legal measures to prevent sectarian tension in Kuwait
Kuwait, Politics, 4/5/2004

Member of the Kuwaiti Ummah council ( parliament) Nasser al-Sane' announced yesterday after his meeting with the Kuwaiti prime minister Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah that the Kuwaiti government intends to take firm legal measures with the objective of limiting sectarian tension between the Sunni and the Shiite in Kuwait.

Al-Sane' said after he had participated in one Islamic delegation met Sheikh Sabah on later Saturday night, "the government has the intention to take prior legal measures in order to control the scene in a way that complies with prevailing laws, relieving it from any extremism from the two sides." He added that the prime minister expressed worries from the individual incidents that had taken place and " asked for understanding for his inclinations and found all support for that.," stressing that the government plans to implement the laws and works for smoothing the atmospheres for maintaining coexistence.

Sheikh Sabah had held several meetings with political and religious groups in Kuwait representing the Sunni and Shiite groups in which he stressed national unity and giving up sectarianism.

Worthy mentioning that one third of the Kuwaitis ( 900,000) are Shiite who descend from Iranian, Iraqi and Saudi origins. The Kuwaiti Shiite are represented in five parliamentarians in the Ummah council ( parliament) out of 50 parliamentarians and one minister out of 16 who is the minister of information Muhammad Abu al-Hassan who is strongly criticized by certain Islamists.

The collapse of the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein and the ability of the Iraqi Shiite to practice a large influence there, enabled the Kuwaiti Shiite from practicing their religious rituals openly. A matter which raised concerns in certain Sunni circles. Liberal Kuwaiti writers accused extremists from both sides ( Sunni and Shiite ) of trying to provoke sedition and sectarianism and called on the prime minister to implement the law.

Previous Stories:
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