Kuwait: Detaining Ahmed Shihab-Eldin — How far can the law stretch before it snaps? |
Could sharing publicly available footage of a military incident land you in prison in Kuwait? Journalist Ahmed Shihab-Eldin’s early March 2026 arrest for resharing already-circulated videos of alleged Kuwaiti friendly fire amid Iran tension brings this question into sharp focus. Understood to be facing charges of spreading false information and endangering national security, he exemplifies a pattern of broad security laws targeting journalism. Groups, including the Committee to Protect Journalists and CNN, as well as international media, note that the footage was in the public domain, warning that authorities may risk conflating reporting with crime and chilling transparency when it’s most crucial.
Shihab-Eldin is certainly not just a bystander. An American-born Kuwaiti journalist of Palestinian descent, he has worked for several prominent media organisations, including the New York Times, HuffPost, Al Jazeera, and the BBC, having cultivated a substantial digital following. Before his detention, Shihab-Eldin consistently used his platform to document the genocide in Gaza, including civilian casualties, starvation, and infrastructure destruction, as well as the raids on Al-Shifa Hospital, the strikes on Rafah and the asymmetric conflict.
Building on this context, the legal framework invoked in Kuwait becomes central to understanding the case. The decree that came into effect in March introduced penalties of up to ten years’ imprisonment for anyone who ‘disseminates news or spreads false rumours relating to military entities’ with the deliberate intention of undermining public confidence in those institutions. Shihab-Eldin’s reporting is said to be assessed through this provision, but the law’s wording is legally ambiguous, as it does not clearly define what constitutes distortion or the threshold of harm required for prosecution. Kuwait is also relying on decades-old state security statutes, which have been in force since 1970. Under these standards, any limitation on expression must satisfy three........