Free internet telephony... but you have to go to jail first

In today's Kuwait Times...

Central Prison talk
KUWAIT: As from the beginning of May, the central jail will start providing inmates with the facilities to communicate with their relatives (voice and picture) through special computer programmes and the Internet. The move has the blessing of the First Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister, Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak.

And I thought it was illegal to use VOIP in Kuwait! (...to ensure that the Ministry of Communications keeps raking it in on international phone calls). Certainly the same newspaper gives us stories now and again of asian ex-pats being arrested for selling telephone calls over the internet to their buddies. Maybe the Central Jail has bribed the Ministry of Communications & Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak. Just a conspiracy theory (as another journalist would say).

But, this is excellent news for the inmates, many of whom are incarcerated for the "crime" of having run-away from their employer because they've been abused, raped or not paid their wages, and are waiting deportation to their home country.