Kuwaiti student Salman al-Khalidi has fled to the United Kingdom seeking political asylum after learning he was about to go on trial in a Kuwaiti court for offending Saudi Arabia. The court subsequently sentenced him, on 6 June 2022, to five years in prison.

In March 2021 al-Khalidi had posted several tweets condemning the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018, after watching the documentary film The Dissident. Al-Khalidi accused the Saudi authorities of assassinating Khashoggi, describing the crime as “an assassination, not just some casual crime”. The Saudi ambassador in Kuwait later used the tweets to file a complaint against al-Khalidi in Kuwait, on 7 April 2022, under Article 4 of the Kuwaiti National Security Law, which makes it a crime to “commit a hostile act against a foreign country that disrupts Kuwait's political relations with that country”.

Al-Khalidi was born in Kuwait in 1999, and was studying business management at Lusail University in Qatar. When he found out that he was due to face trial on 23 May 2022 he decided not to go back to Kuwait, and instead travelled on 21 May from Qatar to the United Kingdom, where he immediately applied for asylum. On 6 June 2022 the Kuwaiti court sentenced him to five years in prison.

Al-Khalidi had already been banned from entering Saudi Arabia when he attempted to travel from Qatar to Kuwait overland, crossing the Saudi borders, in December 2021. He was stopped at the border and told he was not welcome in Saudi Arabia, and was banned from entering Saudi territory for 25 years.

The controversial Article 4 of the Kuwaiti National Security Law has led to the conviction of many Kuwaiti activists for criticising the Saudi authorities. Although the Kuwaiti Constitutional Court has confirmed Article 4’s constitutionality, it has also said that freedom of opinion and expression towards foreign countries does not constitute hostile acts against them.

ALQST therefore calls on the Kuwaiti authorities to quash all charges against Salman al-Khalidi, and calls on the Saudi authorities to cancel his 25-year ban on entry to the kingdom. ALQST also urges both governments to respect and protect the right to freedom of opinion and expression and not treat the exercising of this right as a criminal act.