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On 3rd January 2025, the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) reported that the Iraqi authorities had handed over Kuwaiti blogger Salman Al-Khalidi to the Kuwaiti authorities at the Al-Abdali border crossing with Iraq. The governor of Basra in Iraq handed him over to the Kuwaiti Minister of Interior in person.
On 1st January 2025, the Kuwaiti Ministry of Interior posted on its X account, stating, “In direct cooperation with the sisterly Republic of Iraq, the Criminal Security Sector succeeded in arresting the accused fugitive outside the State of Kuwait (Salman Al-Khalidi), against whom 11 enforceable prison sentences were issued.” Local reports confirmed that Iraqi security forces arrested Al-Khalidi at Baghdad International Airport as he was about to travel to London, where he resides. The tweet also included a photo of Khalidi with his hands tied behind his back while he was made to sit on the ground.
Al-Khalidi, a 25-year-old Kuwaiti citizen, was studying in Qatar when, on 6th June 2022, he was sentenced in absentia in Kuwait to five years’ imprisonment with hard labour after being convicted of committing a “hostile act” against Saudi Arabia. That ruling is related to a series of tweets he published on 25th March 2022 about the role of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on 2nd October 2018. As previously documented, in 2023, he was sentenced in absentia to another three years in prison, and five years in prison with hard labour in separate cases.
The ongoing targeting of Al-Khalidi and these allegations are related to his use of his account on X (formerly Twitter) to express his personal opinions on public issues of concern to citizens in Kuwait, and his defence of the civil and humanitarian rights of the Bedoon community, as well as of prisoners of conscience, in addition to his work as a founding member of the Kuwaiti Refugee Association. The headquarters of the Association, which was established in August 2022, is in the United Kingdom.