The Charges Under Kuwaiti Law 22. The Defendant faces three charges, including one brought under the new Cyber Crimes Law, passed in 2015 and in force since January 2016. 23. The District Attorney charge sheet, dated 26 September 2016, reads as follows: “Having read the papers and the investigations (described) therein, we have decided: Firstly, the incident will be recorded as an offence and breach of law under Article 25 of Law No. 1970/31 (amending some of the provisions of the Penal Code); and Articles 20, 2-1/27 of law No. 3 of 2006 relating to Printing and Publications; and Articles 15/1 and 1/70 of law No. 37 of 2014 relating to Communications and Information Technology; and Articles 1/6, 8, 9-10, 11 of the Cyber Crimes Law 2015. 1 – Publicly and in a public place challenged the rights of the Emir and his authority and defamed the person of the Emir and insulted the office of the Emir by writing the texts shown in the papers through her social media Twitter account, in the manner stated in the investigations. 2 – (She) deliberately misused one of the means of telephone communications by writing the texts on her Twitter account, in the manner stated in the investigations. 3 – (She) published through the Internet and by a means of information technology texts which included criticism of the Emir’s person through writing the texts stated in the papers via her Twitter account, as stated in the investigations.” Challenges posed by the substantive law 24. The Kuwaiti authorities in this case, and others, have in recent years used a miscellany of overlapping laws to bring charges restricting freedom of expression. The primary charge, as is common, is Article 25 of the Penal Code, which provides for jail terms of up to five years for anyone who publicly “objects to the authority of the Emir or insults him.”1 The secondary charges relate to the means of having purportedly done so. 1 A challenge to the constitutionality of Article 25 was rejected by the Supreme Court in 2013. 4