Hidaya Sultan al-Salem

Hidaya Sultan al-Salem, (, 1936 – 20 March 2001), sometimes transliterated as Hedaya, was a Kuwaiti journalist and author, who owned and edited one of Kuwait's earliest political magazines al-Majalis in Kuwait City, Kuwait. She was Kuwait's first female to serve as an editor of a publication. She was a feminist and secularist, and she campaigned against corruption and on behalf of women's rights and suffrage in Kuwait. She was the first journalist to be killed in Kuwait since the Committee to Protect Journalists began recording these acts in 1992.

Personal Hidaya Sultan al-Salem was born in Shuwaikh, Kuwait, to the ruling family. As a child, she attended the private Koranic girls' school of Mutawia Saleema and the Mutawia Mariam Al Askar until 1946. Her education came to an end when she was married at the age of fifteen. At the time of her husbands' death, she was a widow and a mother of four sons and one daughter.

Career Hidaya Sultan al-Salem was a journalist and author, editor and publisher for 40 years. However, she began her career as a teacher. She was the sixth woman to ever become a teacher in Kuwait. While she was a teacher, she started writing articles for Lebanese and Egyptian newspapers.

In 1961, she became a journalist in Kuwait. In addition, she published an underground newsletter Children And Women of Kuwait during the occupation of Kuwait by Iraq in 1990–1991. The Lt. Colonel was a high ranking police officer, and he was wearing a long traditional robe at the time of the shooting. Another motive included financial problems and disputes with her employees. The investigation led to the actual motive for the crime. A year before the murder al-Salem had published an article, the article had criticized his Al-Awazem tribe. The dancers were women that al-Salem's family had hired. The article described the women dancers as 'all temptation and sexual suggestion'. Many members of the tribe took offense to this, due to the fact that al-Salem had talked about the tribe living outside the Kuwait walls. The members of the tribe believed al-Salem was implying that they were not real Kuwaiti people. Later, al-Salem explained that she did not mean that. The Lt. Colonel was thought to have killed al-Salem to protect the honor of his tribe.

Context Even though the Constitution of Kuwait guaranteed women equality in 1961, women were not granted rights until 1999, which was opposed by the reactionary tribal-fundamentalist alliance.

She also played a role in the emergence of women in the literary scene in Kuwait in an era when magazine publishing was a new development.

Impact While Hidaya Sultan al-Salem was the first journalist killed in Kuwait, she was one of 51 journalists killed while on the job in 2001. The rate of professionals in the media being attacked and killed increased during the year of 2001.