Man arrested in Kuwait for blaspheming Prophet Muhammad on Twitter

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Stop me if you’ve heard this one before:

Kuwaiti authorities arrested a man late on Tuesday for insulting the Prophet Mohammad via his Twitter account, the Interior Ministry said, in a rare case of alleged blasphemy in the Gulf Arab state using social media.

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The man, whose name was not disclosed, defamed the Islamic faith and slandered the Prophet Mohammad, his companions and his wife, the ministry said in a statement issued on state-run news agency KUNA. He is being interrogated ahead of court proceedings.

The ministry “regretted the abusing of social networks by some individuals to offend basic Islamic and spiritual values, vowing to show zero tolerance in combating such serious offences,” it said in the statement.

That’s from Reuters. And doesn’t it remind you of this story, from last month, about a Saudi writer who might be executed for insulting Muhammad on Twitter?

Blasphemy is illegal in Kuwait under a 1961 law, though I suspect it has been punished since long before that. Unlike in Saudi Arabia, the religious crime, which in this case is also a state crime, is not punishable by death.