Kuwaiti MPs Angered by Arafat Tribute
By Michael Freund The Jerusalem Post, November 21, 2004
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Members of the Kuwaiti parliament have expressed outrage after the country's
state-run television station broadcast programs paying homage to Yasser
Arafat.

MP Muhammad al-Mutairi harshly criticized the country's information
minister, Muhammad Abulhassan, demanding the establishment of a
parliamentary committee of inquiry on why the programs were televised.

Relations between Arafat and the Kuwaiti government soured in 1990 after the
PLO expressed support for Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

On November 9, the Kuwaiti undersecretary for news, Tarek al-Ajmi, was
suspended from his post by Abulhassan after the airing of a tribute to
Arafat.

At the time, the minister said he would investigate the matter, and insisted
that he had issued strict instructions against televising additional
programs devoted to Arafat.

Nonetheless, Mutairi told the Gulf News daily, "Reports on Kuwait Television
praising Arafat as a great freedom fighter were also broadcast on November
11 and November 12."

"It appears that the memory of the government is getting weaker. This is not
consistent with the feelings of the Kuwaiti people because it involves
someone who stabbed Kuwait in the back and did not respect its leaders and
its people," he said regarding Arafat.

Mutairi added that it was inappropriate for Kuwait to have sent a
high-ranking delegation to attend the Palestinian leader's funeral, and he
called on the government to apologize to the people.

Other Kuwaiti parliamentarians also joined in the criticism, with MP Feisal
al-Meslim saying that he had asked the Information Ministry for copies of
the instructions given to its staff concerning how to handle the Arafat
issue.