Kuwait plans to naturalize 4,000 bedoons this year KUWAIT: Kuwait announced plans to grant citizenships to stateless residents as per a law which allows naturalizing a maximum of 4,000 candidates a year, a local daily reported yesterday quoting Cabinet sources familiar with the case. The decision was announced during a recent meeting between Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sheikh Mohammad Al-Khalid Al-Sabah, President of the Central Apparatus for Illegal Residents Saleh Al- Fadhalah and General Director of the General Department of Citizenships and Passports Sheikh Mazin Al-Sabah, revealed sources who spoke to Al- Anba. According to the sources, a list containing the names of 700-1,000 stateless residents should be ready by early November to be viewed during a Cabinet session later the same month. Priority will be given to bedoons who worked in the military or oil sector, and first degree relatives of Kuwaiti nationals, while all candidates must meet the criteria for naturalization which includes a clear criminal record and documents relating to the 1965 census, the source said. Meanwhile, Al-Anba quoted a source in the Central Apparatus for Illegal Residents who said that the body sent a list to the Cabinet two weeks ago containing the names of bedoons who meet the conditions, and plans to send a similar list this month. The Cabinet also received naturalization lists for bedoon servicemen from the interior and defense ministries, the source added. Interior Minister Sheikh Mohammad Al-Sabah met with the Central Apparatus for Stateless Residents after assuming his duties last month to view the latest updates regarding their research. Several MPs announced plans since then to propose establishing a temporary panel whose job is to follow up with government’s procedures regarding the issue. The parliament approved a bill last March that increased the number of candidates the government can naturalize a year to 4,000 after the government agreed to give priority to stateless residents, but the parliament’s dissolution three months later prevented lawmakers from following up with the government’s procedures to put the law into effect. Kuwait is home to approximately 105,000 stateless residents who demand citizenship as well as civil and social rights they are deprived from, given their ‘illegal’ status. The government, in the meantime, argues that only 34,000 qualify for consideration while the rest are Arabs or descendents of Arab people who deliberately disposed their original passports after coming to Kuwait to seek citizenship in the oil-rich country. In an effort to sort out the stateless residents’ community and find the really deserving ones – including residents whose bedoon ancestors failed to register for citizenship following Kuwait’s independence more than 50 years ago – the Kuwaiti government established the Central Apparatus for Illegal Residents in 2010 with a five-year ultimatum to complete the job. Al-Fadhalah announced last May that the Apparatus has so far been able to identify the original nationalities of 67,000 out of 93,000 ‘bedoons’ registered in the records. Measures were adopted within a year of the Apparatus’ work to grant stateless residents numerous rights including obtaining marriage, birth and death certificates. Several protests have taken place over the past few years, resulting in the arrest of 200 men for illegal gathering. Furthermore, stateless residents’ complaints of discrimination were fueled even more last year when the government introduced a new form of security IDs used as bedoons’ main form of identification. The cards contain colored tags referring to the category under which a holder is recognized in state records, including those eligible for naturalization and others the government claims belong to other countries. For example, a bearer of a red-tagged card is classified under ‘people with criminal restrictions’ which renders naturalization applications automatically disqualified. Although not used in official state documents, the term ‘bedoon’, which is Arabic for without, remains the most commonly used name to refer to stateless residents since members of the community live without nationality since birth. It is a term used often by the media, press, human rights activists, parliament members and even government officials Via Kuwait Times
Posted on: Tue, 17 Sep 2013 16:44:47 +0000
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