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KUWAITI BIDOUN The Kuwait allegation is another propaganda to
mislead the international community and media to buy more time to increase
the sanction against the remaining Bidoon including children, women, and
seniors to be driven out of their native land. There is no Law in Kuwait
gives the Bidoon the rights to petition the courts to challenge
governmental decisions regarding their claims to citizenship, and the
government unilaterally deciding the nationality of any stateless
residents without a hearing, where is the justice in that?
The discretionary citizenship process has not been
open to challenge since three decade, many Bidoon were denied citizenship
simply due to the fact that the government failed to act on their
applications or provide them with an adequate opportunity to prove their
claims. Denying Bidoon the right to petition the courts violates the
universal right to due process of law and equality before the law. How can
the international community and the United Nations accept these kinds of
injustice governmental solutions to end the Bidoon crisis, without the
Bidoon rights to petition the courts to challenge governmental
decisions? Till this moment all Bidoon that are naturalized
are only the children of widow Kuwait mothers with first degree
citizenship not second, and many of them are not Bidoon some hold other
nationality. In general the Kuwaiti government since the sixties are not
serious about solving the Bidoon issue, and all Law related to citizenship
are false signal to mislead the international community, in the past there
was many committee and Laws regarding the Bidoon but without
implementation. US Department of State, Kuwait Country Report on
Human Rights Practices Released, February 26, 1999.stated "The Government has made only
slight progress towards solving the longstanding issue of the Bidoon…
Although the Government has not found a solution to the human rights
problems of the approximately 114,000 stateless persons residing in Kuwait
known as the Bidoon, it continued to naturalize small batches of the
Bidoon population via piecemeal legislation that addressed the marginal
aspects of the Bidoon problem, but left the core complexities
untouched." U.S. Committee for Refugees, 1997, stated "In May,
the National Assembly considered a proposal to naturalize about 10,000
Bidoon, about 10 percent of the Bidoon population in Kuwait. By the end of
1997, however, the government had naturalized only about 500 Bidoon, many
the children of Kuwaiti citizen mothers", this is another proof that the
Kuwaiti government is not serious to solve the Bidoon crisis, and since
the sixties the government had been promising to solve this crisis, but
never done so. The situation of the Bidoon in general are
aggravating every day, they had been deprived from the majority of their
basic human and civil rights starting from the 1980's. The treatment of
the Bidoon by the government of Kuwait amounts to a policy of apartheid,
harassment and intimidation. The Bidoon in Kuwait are not allowed to work
or to receive welfare or charity, their children are not allowed to go to
school, their security ID had been deprived from majority of them leaving
then without access to Public health care, imposed on them many sanctions
and fiscal charges, banned from travel and living in poverty and under
threat of deportation. Further blocking the return of 50 percent of the
pre-occupation Bidoon population constitutes cruel, inhuman and degrading
treatment under widely accepted international law principles. Also these
policy aimed to force the remaining Bidoon to deport their country and
this is a crime against humanity. Kuwait double standard with the United
Nations didn't get any rejection from the UN, the US or even any country
in the world. On one hand, Kuwait has been benefiting from the
international Law since the invasion. On the other hand, they have been
violating a vast international convention, even those that Kuwait had
signed or ratified over three-decade. How come the United Nations letting
Kuwait benefit from billions of dollars in compensation from the Iraqis
for damage inflicted during the 1990-91 occupation, while ignoring the
massive inhuman sanctions imposed on the Bidoon children, women, and
seniors by the Kuwaiti government since the 1980's. We hope that you will
take action against these crimes. Sincerely, Kuwaiti Bidoon Human Rights Organization
(KBHRO) Lafy Almutairy Web site: E-mail:
Fax: +1 (413) 521-1066 Fax:
+1 (209) 821-8088 U.K.
Fax: +44 0870 088 1209 |