الرئيسية
Kuwait said
Tuesday it will not allow stateless people to stage any more
demonstrations after having promised to resolve their demands for
citizenship.
"The ministry will not allow any processions, gatherings or
demonstrations (by stateless), regardless of their nature or aims," the
interior ministry said in a statement.
It described stateless people as illegal residents, the official term
Kuwait uses to identify more than 105,000 stateless people demanding
citizenship and other basic rights.
They plan to gather on Friday as they have been doing on the Muslim weekly day of prayer since December 16.
Inspired by the Arab Spring protests, stateless people demonstrated
in February and March and then revived their protests last month
demanding a fair solution to their plight.
At the outset, riot police used force to disperse the protesters and
arrested more than 30 of them but later allowed them to demonstrate
peacefully.
Interior Minister Sheikh Ahmad al-Humoud Al-Sabah said in remarks
published Sunday that Kuwait will start naturalising some of the
stateless people, locally known as "bidoons," by the end of January or
early next month.
The minister gave no details as to the number of bidoons who will receive citizenship.
But Saleh al-Fadhalah, who heads the government's central agency for
illegal residents that deals with the stateless, said last month that
34,000 stateless people could qualify for citizenship.
Kuwait has long alleged that bidoons or their ancestors destroyed
their original passports to claim the right to Kuwaiti citizenship in
order to gain access to the services and generous benefits provided to
nationals.
In a bid to force the bidoons to produce original nationality papers,
Kuwait has refused to issue essential documents to most of them,
including birth, marriage and death certificates, Human Rights Watch
said last June.
Tuesday it will not allow stateless people to stage any more
demonstrations after having promised to resolve their demands for
citizenship.
"The ministry will not allow any processions, gatherings or
demonstrations (by stateless), regardless of their nature or aims," the
interior ministry said in a statement.
It described stateless people as illegal residents, the official term
Kuwait uses to identify more than 105,000 stateless people demanding
citizenship and other basic rights.
They plan to gather on Friday as they have been doing on the Muslim weekly day of prayer since December 16.
Inspired by the Arab Spring protests, stateless people demonstrated
in February and March and then revived their protests last month
demanding a fair solution to their plight.
At the outset, riot police used force to disperse the protesters and
arrested more than 30 of them but later allowed them to demonstrate
peacefully.
Interior Minister Sheikh Ahmad al-Humoud Al-Sabah said in remarks
published Sunday that Kuwait will start naturalising some of the
stateless people, locally known as "bidoons," by the end of January or
early next month.
The minister gave no details as to the number of bidoons who will receive citizenship.
But Saleh al-Fadhalah, who heads the government's central agency for
illegal residents that deals with the stateless, said last month that
34,000 stateless people could qualify for citizenship.
Kuwait has long alleged that bidoons or their ancestors destroyed
their original passports to claim the right to Kuwaiti citizenship in
order to gain access to the services and generous benefits provided to
nationals.
In a bid to force the bidoons to produce original nationality papers,
Kuwait has refused to issue essential documents to most of them,
including birth, marriage and death certificates, Human Rights Watch
said last June.