MOSCOW, June 11 (RAPSI) - A court in Kuwait on Monday sentenced a woman to 11 years in prison for insulting the emir and for posting anti-government tweets, AFP reports, citing the court's decision.

Huda al-Ajmi, 37, has been found guilty of insulting Sheikh Sabah al-Sabah, calling for regime change and misusing her mobile phone.

Several opposition members and former MPs have been sentenced in Kuwait for tweeting offensive statements about the emir over the past few months. In April, opposition leader Mussallam al-Barrak was given a five-year sentence for "undermining" the emir. Several other opposition members were previously convicted for posting similar critical comments about the emir on social networking sites.

The sentences were handed down amid a growing confrontation between the government and the opposition, which demands that the results of the December 2012 parliamentary elections be invalidated and a new public vote be held.

Mass protests flared up in Kuwait, a small oil-rich Persian Gulf country, last year. People demanded democratic change, and the opposition boycotted the December parliamentary elections after the emir changed the electoral law in the run-up to the elections.