Press reports have confirmed that blogger Salman Al-Khalidi has been sentenced to 15 years in prison in Kuwait.

On 11 January 2026, the Kuwaiti Criminal Court sentenced him to 15 years’ imprisonment with hard labour, followed by deportation.

The sentence was handed down after Al-Khalidi was convicted on charges including using his X account to deliberately challenge the authority of the Emir, insulting the head of the state, and committing a hostile act against the sister nation of Saudi Arabia.

On 01 January 2025, Iraqi authorities handed over Al-Khalidi, who had received several in absentia sentences for lengthy prison terms, to Kuwaiti authorities at the Al-Abdali border crossing. The Governor of Basra, Iraq, personally delivered him to the Kuwaiti Minister of the Interior.

For more information on his case and the sentences issued against him, see here.

Al-Khalidi, 26 years old, is a young Kuwaiti man who was studying in Qatar. After receiving his first five-year prison sentence in absentia, he was forced to flee to the United Kingdom, arriving on 21 May 2022. He applied for political asylum, which was granted to him on 29 December 2023.

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 defense 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, are in the United Kingdom, where it holds activities.

The Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) strongly condemns the 15-year prison sentence against blogger Salman Al-Khalidi, as it violates his right to freedom of expression both online and offline.

GCHR calls on the competent British authorities to provide blogger Salman Al-Khalidi with full protection as a political refugee in accordance with the 1952 Convention and the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees, and to request the Kuwaiti authorities to allow him to travel to the United Kingdom, where he enjoys the right to political asylum.