A crowd angry about a program they deemed insulting to some members of Kuwait's ruling family stormed a private Kuwaiti television station Sunday, ransacking its offices, station officials said.
"Some of them were armed with pistols and knives. They attacked the studio and damaged it and beat up the workers. About 10 were injured," Mohammed Talal al-Saeed, executive manager of Scope TV, told Reuters.
A witness said the mob numbered upwards of 150 people, the Kuwaiti Times reported.
Fajr al-Saeed, owner of the station, said she had received threats to her life after the talk show "Zain wa Shain" ("Good and Bad") aired Saturday.
She said the host of the talk show had appeared to accuse a member of the ruling family, who is also a senior Information Ministry official, of being behind accusations that another of the station's programs was an attempt to overthrow the government.
Kuwaiti newspapers have said the Information Ministry has accused Fajr al-Saeed of fomenting insurrection with the airing earlier this year of Scope's satirical comedy "Sawtak Wasal" ("Your Voice Has Been Heard").
Authorities arrested Fajr al-Saeed last week on charges the show was an attempt to incite the toppling of the regime, The Kuwait-based Arab Times reported. She called the allegations "irresponsible," the newspaper said.
'An offensive act'
She told Reuters that Sunday's attackers had been looking for her, the station manager or the host of Saturday's program, and added that the station had gone off the air after the attack.
She named Kuwait's ambassador to Jordan as the ringleader, but the diplomat's camp said he was only present at the scene to calm the crowd, the Arab Times reported.
A Reuters reporter saw broken windows and overturned desks at the station, which police had cordoned off. A witness, lawyer Saeed al-Yahya, said the mob had numbered at least 150 people.
Interior Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Khaled Al-Sabah said authorities took the attackers into custody and an investigation is underway, the Times reported.
"This is an offensive act and it is not in line with our customs. We are on top of the situation to forestall further degeneration," the Arab Times report quoted him as saying.
Kuwait, the world's fourth largest oil exporter, has a vibrant media culture and generally allows more press criticism of public officials than other Gulf Arab states.
But its ruler is protected from criticism by the constitution, and defamation cases against newspapers, writers and bloggers are common.
