A leading Kuwaiti liberal academic said Saturday he has quit writing in protest at a one-year suspended jail term he received last week for "disparaging the Holy Quran" in an article. Ahmed Al-Baghdadi, a university political science professor and columnist, was served the sentence for harshly criticising plans by the Ministry of Education to increase the number of Islamic education lessons in schools. The Court of Appeals asked Baghdadi to pay $6,800 to suspend the jail term, which he did, and ordered him to keep good conduct for three years. "This is my last article and last words. Goodbye to the freedom of speech which has been beheaded with the guillotine of the law," Baghdadi wrote in his column in Al-Seyassah newspaper, where he has been writing for many years."The issue is not a court ruling here and another there, but a sickening environment filled with germs and viruses of hatred and tyranny," he said. In an article he wrote last June, Baghdadi said he sent his son to a private foreign school to escape the "backwardness" of public education and because he thought "learning music is more important than learning the Holy Quran." Al-Seyassah editor Ahmed Al-Jarallah was also fined $170 by the Appeals Court for allowing the publication of the article. The two had been acquitted by the Criminal Court in January because it considered the criticism as part of freedom of expression.
The case was filed by three Islamist activists on the grounds that the article contained an accusation that Islamic education in Kuwait teaches students to be terrorists and hate women and non-Muslims. According to Kuwaiti law, if Baghdadi, 54, is convicted during the three years probation, he would be required to serve the jail term immediately. Describing this as a "roulette" game, Baghdadi said he decided to "permanently cease writing in Kuwait," and that he would resume once he leaves his country. Last Sunday he told AFP he would seek political asylum in a foreign country.