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Kuwait protesters want PM to go

Agitators hand out melons to lawmakers
Last Updated 03 May 2018, 06:15 IST

 “This is for the parliament’s poor performance,” one of the small band of protesters shouted as he gave a watermelon to a lawmaker making his way into the parliament.
The significance was not spelled out, but in local parlance, a person who has a lack of understanding or holds an unrealistic point of view sometimes is called a watermelon.
In Libya, where protests against Muammar Gadhafi have descended into widespread violence, protesters threw shoes, which are considered unclean in the Arab world, at television screens showing the Libyan leader’s speech.

In Kuwait, six members of the Kuwaiti youth group Kafi (Enough), gave watermelons to a few lawmakers as a signal of their political dissatisfaction in a country that has the most outspoken parliament in the Gulf Arab region.

The demonstration marked a tempered start to a planned day of unauthorised protests by youth groups demanding the removal of Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser al-Mohammad al-Sabah, a member of the ruling family, and greater political freedom.

A potentially larger rally was expected later, inspired by spreading Arab protests that toppled leaders in Tunisia and Egypt.

Some of the protest organisers not only want Sheikh Nasser to step down, but seek a replacement from outside the al-Sabah family, which has ruled Kuwait for some 250 years.

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(Published 08 March 2011, 17:21 IST)

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