Police arrested around 40 people when hundreds of angry Syrians and local activists stormed the Syrian embassy in Kuwait on Saturday, the interior ministry and a security official said.
“A group of Syrian expats stormed the Syrian embassy in Kuwait, removed the flag and destroyed utilities,” the ministry said in a statement.
Security personnel assigned to guard the embassy “fired warning gunshots” but protesters still stormed the embassy which eventually left a number of Kuwaiti security men injured, the ministry said.
Earlier, the independent Kuwait Association for Human Rights said on its Twitter page that at least two protesters were injured in the scramble to flee after embassy guards fired gunshots into the air.
In its statement, the interior ministry said that the Syrian ambassador and other embassy staff escaped unhurt. Police arrested a number of those who stormed the mission, including several Kuwaitis and authorities were still looking for others, the interior ministry said without saying how many were detained.
A security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP that around 40 people were arrested, including at least two Kuwaitis.
Kuwaiti activist Abdulaziz al-Mutairi was among those arrested, his friends said in messages posted on Twitter.
The foreign ministry strongly condemned the incident, saying it “breaches the country’s laws and international charters.” Kuwaiti MP and head of the Arab parliament, Ali al-Deqbasi, said in a statement Saturday that he will demand the expulsion of Syrian envoys from Arab countries.
He said the crackdown on anti-government protesters in Syria is proof of the “inability of the Arab League to protect Arab people.” Deqbasi also criticised Moscow saying it “let down the Arab people by attempting to block international efforts to rescue the Syrian people,” and called on Arab countries to be “cautious in their relations with Russia.”
Newly elected Islamist MP Osama Munawer called in a statement for the “immediate release of those arrested.”
Kuwaiti activists meanwhile called for another protest at the Syrian embassy later in the day.
The demonstration took place after Syrians and activists used Twitter to appeal for the gathering to be held after dawn Muslim prayers, following news about a massacre in Homs.
Kuwait surprises me. It is a small pampered nation with great wealth and yet, there seems to be this undercurrent of violence. Can anyone explain this? Are they just bored or is political expression so stifflled that violence spurts out now and then?
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