KUWAIT: RULER REJECTS DEATH PENALTY RELIGIOUS OFFENCES

June 6, 2012: Kuwait’s emir, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, has refused to sign a bill passed by parliament stipulating the death penalty for major religious offences, sources in the assembly said.
The oil-rich Gulf state’s government has sent the bill back to parliament, sources said, indicating that it had been rejected by the emir.
The emir has the power to refuse bills passed by the elected parliament, but the assembly can override the rejection by passing the bill again with a two-thirds majority of the house membership of 49 MPs and 16 cabinet ministers.
The bill, passed by parliament last month, stipulates that Muslims who curse God, the Muslim holy book Quran, all prophets and the wives of Islam’s Prophet Mohammed will be punished by death or life in jail.
The bill introduced two new articles to the Gulf state’s penal code specifically to stiffen penalties for such offences. Non-Muslims who commit the same offence face a jail term of not less than 10 years, according to the bill.
Defendants who repent in court will be spared the death penalty, but will get a jail sentence for five years and a fine of $36,000 or one of them, while repentance by those who repeat the crime is not acceptable, the bill says. (Sources: AFP, 06/06/2012)