Kuwait

The State of Kuwait is a constitutional emirate under Emir Sheikh Mishal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, who assumed power in December 2023 following the death of Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah. Executive authority is exercised through a Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Sheikh Ahmad Al-Abdullah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, who was assigned to form a government in April 2024 and headed the cabinet approved on 12 May 2024 and sworn in on 15 May 2024. The 2025/26 review cycle has been shaped by Kuwait’s continued operation under the May 2024 Amiri order that dissolved the National Assembly and suspended parts of the Constitution for a period not exceeding four years, and by the February 2026 cabinet reshuffle under Decree No. 11 of 2026, in which Abdullah Buftain was appointed Minister of Information and Culture on 1 February 2026 before his resignation was accepted on 4 February 2026 and Omar Saud Al-Omar, Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology Affairs, was named Acting Minister of Information and Culture. The Youth and Sport Affairs portfolio was separated from the Ministry of Information during the same reshuffle. The State of Kuwait was designated Arab Capital of Culture and Media 2025 and was endorsed to chair the Executive Bureau of the Council of Arab Information Ministers for a two-year term.

Kuwait’s media environment remained restrictive during the 2025/26 cycle, and the country’s press-freedom indicators deteriorated over the review window. In the 2026 World Press Freedom Index, Reporters Without Borders ranked Kuwait 136th of 180 countries with a score of 40.44, down from 128th and a score of 44.06 in 2025. The RSF Kuwait country assessment notes that the country’s reputation as the least repressive country in the Gulf has been tempered by growing control over news and information under Emir Sheikh Mishal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, the 2016 cybercrime law, censorship provisions prohibiting criticism of the government, the Emir, the ruling family and religion, and the chilling effect of interrogations, short-term detentions and prosecutorial threats that have driven some journalists into exile. Al-Watan TV’s 2015 closure for anti-government content remains a key precedent cited in assessments of state-imposed outlet closure in Kuwait. Following the 2026 regional conflict around Iran and its repercussions in the Gulf, official directives further restricted coverage of the conflict and related security developments on national-security grounds.

The 2026 SMM dataset for Kuwait covers three SMM-mapped media entities, all classified State-Controlled (SC) under the State Media Matrix typology, with three structurally distinct SC sub-architectures within a single country cluster. Kuwait Television (KTV), which began broadcasting on 15 November 1961, operates as an internal division of the Ministry of Information and Culture without separate corporate form, with a portfolio of nine terrestrial and thematic channels alongside the Al-Akhbar news channel, launched on 28 July 2024, and the 51 Kuwait streaming platform, launched in May 2024. Kuwait Radio, whose institutional history dates to 12 May 1951, operates under the same internal-Ministry-division architecture with seven principal SMM-tracked radio services within the Ministry’s wider engineering schedule. Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) was established by Decree No. 70 on 6 October 1976 as a public institution with legal personality and operates with a formal Board of Directors appointed by Cabinet on Ministry nomination, with Mohammad Al-Mannai identified as Acting Director-General during the review period and the agency’s 50th anniversary falling in October 2026. The Ministry of Information was allocated KWD 254.070 million in the 2025/26 state budget, within which KTV and Kuwait Radio operations are funded on a consolidated basis, while KUNA’s most recently identified standalone allocation stands at KWD 16 million from 2023/24. No SMM-tracked Kuwait entity underwent a classification change during the 2025/26 cycle.

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