Only three months in and 2012 is already bearing witness
to significant developments for the Bidoon issue in Kuwait, a situation that
has been left unsolved for decades. This
community, numbering over 100,000, is a stateless group who, despite living in
Kuwait for decades, are not considered its citizens. They suffer from difficulties
accessing a range of basic rights, including obtaining ID certificates, access to public education, health care, housing and
employment. Additionally they have no
recourse to the state’s judicial system.
The tumult
Last year (2011), in February and March, many members
of the Bidoon community took to the streets to demand full citizenship. This
was the only large-scale protest to take place in the gulf region amidst the
ongoing MENA uprisings. This tumult then calmed, until December last year when the
protests were resurfaced.
The response by the Kuwaiti authorities was two-fold. On the one hand, there were brutal attempts
to quell the protests. Riot police were
deployed – with tear gas, water cannons and batons reportedly used. Many Bidoon were believed to have been
injured and hundreds arrested and detained.
The government then threatened to deport stateless people who took part
in the protests. Other punitive measures
included dismissing Bidoon from the army and the police force if they or their
children had taken part in the protests, and threats were made to evict them
from welfare housing. The government also decided to
confiscate security IDs from any Bidoon protesters - documents that constituted
their only form of identification. It is
now believed that the ‘occupy the parliament’
campaign, where hundreds of mainly Bidoon demonstrators stormed the parliament,
will be used against those who participated who might face years in jail.
At the same time, the reality of the need for steps to
be taken to address the issue became clear to the Kuwaiti government. Saleh Al
Fadhalah, the head of the inaptly named Central Agency for Illegal Residents
that is mandated to deal with this issue, stated that they were to commence
working on the cases of approximately 34,000 stateless people who they feel could
qualify for citizenship. These, it was announced, would include, amongst
others, children of Kuwaiti women, individuals serving in the army and police,
and relatives of Kuwaitis. The degree to which this might be implemented, the
identification procedure, the exact criteria and the naturalization process are
all yet to have been established. So, although this is a potentially
positive move, by ignoring the majority of the community it clearly falls short
of what is needed to resolve the full problem. It
also changes the angle from discriminating against
the Bidoon to discriminating between
the Bidoon as to who deserves to be naturalized and who doesn’t.
One of the consequences of these actions and the
ambiguous reactions is that there has been increased international interest in
the issue. The UK has sent a committee to observe developments, as has the US
State department. The UN has also taken a more vocal stance than has been seen in the
past. UNHCR’s Director of International Protection, Volker Türk, visited the country to discuss
developments with the authorities. He highlighted the importance to national
interest of resolving the issue, stating that ‘if you stabilize a population, if you
fight inequality, if you stop segregation and you try to integrate a whole
population, it benefits the entire society.’
The Committee on the Elimination of
Racial Discrimination also issued a statement relaying its most recent concerns regarding Bidoon
issues, pointing in particular to the low rate of naturalizations, and the fact
that basic human rights violations, such as access to adequate services, are
commonplace among the population.
Alongside this however the national
reaction to the developments is interesting. Coupled with growing involvement from civil society on the issue, the
Kuwaiti media has been increasingly vilifying the Bidoon community in their news
reports. There are, for example, continual and amplified reports on crimes
being committed by Bidoons, with the fact that the individual involved is a Bidoon
always being stressed.
Where
to now?
Over the past year, the Bidoon have seen protests, a
storming of parliament, detention, threats of deportation and promises of
citizenship, while very few have actually been naturalized. What needs to be looked at now, besides all
these events, is what concrete initiatives may come from all this and whether
there is any real scope for positive next-steps.
The month of March has witnessed the issue slowly but
seriously moving into parliamentary debate sessions. One session was dedicated purely to
addressing the issue with a Prime Minister ‘grilling’ opportunity. A Kuwaiti MP stated that this discussion on
the Bidoon was needed in order to ‘grant them their
basic human rights and preserve their dignity,’ statements unheard of before
the recent protests. The same MP,
Mubarak Al-Waalan, also asserted that ‘we need to pass a law that give Bidoon
their civil rights to better their living conditions and to improve the image
of Kuwait’s people, leadership, and parliament.’ On March 20th the parliamentary debate
focused on the claim that some Bidoons are citizens of other countries but are
hiding their documents to enjoy the privileges come with being
Kuwaiti. Although the approach seems
negative, as Bidoons have been excluded from benefits of Kuwaiti citizenship for
decades and the burden of proof of distinguishing hidden citizenships lies with
the authorities, at a minimum the fact that such a discussion taking place is a
step in the right direction for the government.
To date, events have been unfolding rapidly and at
times with real promise in Kuwait, yet without a clear picture of actual
change. The Rapporteur of the Kuwaiti Human
Rights Committee, MP Mohammed Hayef has stated that the next meeting with Saleh
Al-Fadala will be on April 8th.
Here, he states, the next question that will need to be addressed by the
head of the Central Agency for Illegal Residents is for him to present a clear
plan on how he will naturalize or provide ID documents to the 35,000
individuals alluded to. It is hard to
interpret whether this means the plans are progressing or merely being delayed by
these discussions. It is up to the international watchdogs that have taken an
interest, to ensure that sight is not lost of the majority of Bidoon who are
being left out of even this debate. The worry, especially as there seems to be a
disjuncture between national and international sentiments on these questions,
is that this debate will just be a prolonged discussion that eventually loses
momentum again without bringing about the much-needed and long-awaited change. Stay tuned for new installments as we
continue to follow this issue closely…
Zahra Albarazi, MENA Statelessness and Nationality Project Coordinator, Statelessness Programme
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