Kuwait imprisons professor for speaking his mind on Islam

Kuwaiti University professor and journalist Ahmad al-Baghdadi said in a statement issued on Thursday from his prison where he will stay for one month for being convicted of "insulting" the Islamic religion three years ago that he is intending to migrate to Lebanon.

The Kuwaiti daily al-Rai al-Am quoted him as saying that he "seriously" thinks of migrating from Lebanon because it is "the country of culture, the freedom and the opinion."

Al-Baghdadi, who assumes the post of the chairman of the political sciences department at Kuwait's university denounced what he called: "the attempts made by religious movements to impose their control on society."

He considered his imprisonment as a violating his dignity. He said, "I swear in the name of the Almighty God that this catastrophe will not happen again with one of my children, and therefore I will emigrate." He added that he abstained from having food since he entered the prison and that he only takes liquids to be able to take his heart medicine.

Al-Baghdadi was sentenced to one month's imprisonment because of an article he wrote in 1996 in which he criticized prophet Muhammad over his failure for 13 years in convincing Mecca chiefs to join Islam before he left for al-Madina.

Al-Baghdadi stressed in his Thursday statement that he is a true Muslim, "I pray and fast and dare not undermine the holy rank of the prophet. But the heart of the matter is that there is a trend which stands against Ahmad al-Baghdadi aiming at downing him."