Manama: A concert by Lebanese singer Marcel Khalifa will go ahead in Kuwait as scheduled, an official from the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters (NCCAL) has said.
“The administrative issues and the stalled procedures have been addressed and there is no cancellation of the concert,” Ali Al Yoha, NCCAL secretary general, said.
“The concert will be held as scheduled and the procedures with the singer have been finalised.
Kuwait is genuinely keen on holding high-class cultural events, based on its belief in the significance of serious art. It is also keen on welcoming its creative guests in the field of art and literature,: he said, quoted by local daily Al Jareeda on Wednesday.
Reports emerged on Tuesday in Kuwait saying that the performance had been cancelled.
According to the reports, pressure from extremist lawmakers had pushed the council to cancel the concert in protest against the 64-year-old Lebanese singer.
The lawmakers insisted the singer be banned from entering the country.
However, an official from the council, the main government body involved in Kuwait’s artistic life, said the cancellation was due to “purely administrative reasons in order to avoid issues that the current situation cannot accommodate.”
Reports attributed the move to ban the Lebanese singer in Kuwait to the decades-old controversy triggered by his song Ana Youssef Ya Abi (Oh Father, I am Yusuf) in which he reportedly used verses from the Quran about the story of Prophet Joseph.
The song was based on a poem by legendary Palestinian poet and writer Mahmoud Darwish.
Khalifa faced a court trial in Lebanon over the song after an investigating judge in Beirut recommended filing criminal charges against him for ‘insulting religious values by using a verse from the Quran in a song’.
However, the court in December 1999 cleared him of blasphemy charges.
Akon concert
Kuwait last week cancelled a concert by US rapper Akon scheduled for April 11 after lawmakers warned they would take action if the stage performance went ahead.
“If the US singer who is well known for his terrible lyrics is allowed to perform, we will not hesitate to move against anything that touches our religion and our morals,” MP Humood Al Hamdan said.
The lawmaker said the ministries of information and interior should run a thorough check on any singer or person planning to enter Kuwait.
“We need to protect our children and make sure they are not influenced by negative people,” he said. “There must be a zero-tolerance policy towards such matters.”
MP Mohammad Tana said that he contacted the information minister Shaikh Salman Al Humood as soon as he heard about the concert.
“He responded positively and accepted my request not to allow him [Akon] to enter Kuwait,” he said.
However, Bashar Al Sayegh, the secretary general of the National Coalition, criticised the decision.
“The information ministry allowed the concert, the interior ministry supported it and the youth ministry sponsored it,” he said. “Then, the interior ministry cancels it under pressure from lawmakers. The government should not have given in to the forces that have caused an ominous deterioration of freedom,” he said.
He said all permits for the concert had been secured, but it seemed some forces are more potent than legal and correct procedures, he added.
The performance was planned at the SIRBB Circuit, Kuwait’s latest go-karting facility.
The concert was part of the ‘I Respect Life’ campaign launched by a group of young people to promote awareness among drivers about safe driving.
Campaigners said its main objective “is to raise awareness against using mobile phones while driving” and that the message it is spreading is that it is not cool not to care.
The campaign was launched following a noticeable increase in the number of traffic accident victims.
