As Kuwait cracks down, a battle erupts over women’s rights

By ISABEL DEBRE and MALAK HARB
Associated Press

KUWAIT CITY (AP) — The Kuwaiti government has canceled a women’s yoga retreat this month in the latest flashpoint of a long-running culture war over women’s freedoms in the Gulf Arab sheikhdom. Women might be progressing across the Arab world, but in Kuwait, the guardians of conservative morals have increasingly cracked down on their rights in recent months. That prompted activists to take to the streets last week. The string of religiously motivated decisions has touched off sustained outrage among Kuwaiti women at a time in which not a single one sits in the elected parliament and gruesome cases of honor killings have gripped the public.