Four Kuwaiti lawyers will sue Qatar-based al-Jazeera satellite television channel for airing a program they claim insulted Kuwait and its people, one of the lawyers said on Saturday, according to AFP.
The four lawyers, who plan to file suit in a Kuwaiti court this week, are also suing the program’s host, Faisal al-Qassim, lawyer Hashim al-Rifai stated.
Last Tuesday, Al-Jazeera TV broadcast the final live episode of the show "Al-Itijah Al-Muakis" (Opposite Direction) during which, al-Rifai claimed, Egyptian researcher and writer Sayed Nassar made untrue and slanderous remarks regarding Kuwait.
"Even the host, Faisal al-Qassim, was biased during the program," he added, saying that the TV show, which also featured Kuwaiti columnist Nabil al-Fadhel, represented Kuwait in a negative fashion.
Al-Jazeera, which cut short the live program because it was so tense, re-ran an edited version of the show the following day. In addition, the channel has not been officially notified about the lawsuit, an Al-Jazeera executive said.
In December, al-Jazeera won an appeal in a case filed by a Kuwaiti lawyer on behalf of twenty-two Kuwaitis who had been awarded compensation for a talk-show they said caused "devastating moral harm to all Kuwaitis."
Al-Jazeera TV has become well known around the globe for its exclusive reports during the US-led war on Afghanistan and for its interviews with suspected terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden. (Albawaba.com)
