Fajr Al-Saeed was initially detained on 9 January, with authorities accusing her of promoting normalisation with Israel [AlsaeedFajer/X]
Kuwaiti TV host Fajr Al-Saeed has been sentenced to three years in prison on charges of spreading false news and misusing the internet, following a ruling by the Kuwait Criminal Court reported by Kuwaiti media on Thursday.
The decision comes after Saeed’s controversial statements on normalisation with Israel and her outspoken political views, which have sparked debate both in Kuwait and across the region.
Saeed was initially detained on 9 January, with authorities accusing her of promoting normalisation with Israel.
In 2021, she told the Israeli broadcaster Kan that she supported normalisation, a position she had already expressed in a 2019 post on X, where she wrote that she “strongly supports normalisation with the state of Israel”.
While she was acquitted of the specific charge of promoting normalisation, the court found her guilty of other charges related to her online activity.
Saeed has long been a polarising figure in Kuwait due to her political and social views, often clashing with the country’s official stance on sensitive issues.
The Kuwaiti government has repeatedly rejected normalisation with Israel, insisting that any diplomatic relations must be preceded by a just resolution to the Palestinian issue.
On 9 February, the Kuwaiti foreign ministry reaffirmed its stance, rejecting any displacement of Palestinians and supporting their right to an independent state based on pre-1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Saeed’s sentencing in Kuwait comes just days after the Iraqi embassy in Kuwait withdrew a separate lawsuit against her, following an official apology she had issued to Iraq and its leadership.
On 10 February, Saeed publicly apologised on X, addressing Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shiaa al-Sudani, the government-sponsored Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), and the Iraqi people.
She also announced that she was quitting political work, vowing to step away from public commentary and political criticism.
Her legal troubles in Iraq stemmed from a 4 January video on her programme ‘Hona al-Kuwait’ (Here is Kuwait), in which she criticised the Iraqi parliament’s majority vote to end the American presence in Iraq.
She argued that despite the vote, US troops would not leave, and further claimed that the era of armed groups in Iraq was coming to an end.
In her comments, she specifically mentioned the Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia and its leader Qais al-Khazali, a key faction within the PMF, a Shia-led armed group coalition formed in 2014 to fight the Islamic State (IS) group.
Following her remarks, Iraqi authorities pursued legal action against her, but on Thursday the Iraqi News Agency (INA) reported that Prime Minister al-Sudani had directed the case to be withdrawn after Saeed’s apology.
