Kuwait’s Stateless Arabs Protest for Rights
Hundreds of stateless Arabs in the Gulf state of Kuwait demonstrated on Friday demanding a solution to their problem and citizenship which the government refuses, an Agence France Presse photographer said.
Some 300 men began the protest following the Muslim Friday prayers in Jahra city, 50 kilometers (31 miles) west of Kuwait City amid tight security including members of the elite riot police.
Some of the protesters were carrying copies of the Muslim holy book, the Koran, and chanting slogans of "God is Great" while demanding a solution to their decades-old problem.
Stateless Arabs, estimated at more than 100,000, claim they have the right to Kuwaiti citizenship but the government says that ancestors of many of them came from neighboring countries and they are not entitled to nationality.
Kuwait launched a crackdown on stateless Arabs in 2000, depriving them of their essential rights in a bid to force them to reveal what the authorities say is their true identity.
Authorities said that following the crackdown, some 20,000 bidoons disclosed their original citizenship and were given residence permits like other foreigners.
However, most bidoons claim to be Kuwaitis whose forefathers, who lived as Bedouins in the desert, failed to apply for citizenship when the state first introduced its nationality law in 1959.
Source: Agence France Presse
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