Kuwait: Musallam Al-Barrak jailed

Opposition politician Musallam Al-Barrak, whose two-year sentence for insulting the emir was upheld by Kuwait’s highest court in May, has been arrested and taken to jail. He and nine members of his family were detained, his lawyer Mohammed Abdel Kader Al-Jassim told Reuters on 13 June; the former MP was placed in solitary confinement in the central prison. Barrak was initially sentenced to five years in jail, following a speech he made in 2012 that accused Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah of being autocratic.