Report: Kuwait Begins Deporting Businessmen, Media Officials Linked to Hizbullah

Kuwait authorities have started to prepare lists of Hizbullah supporters to prevent their arrival in the country and others in anticipation of their deportation, reported the Kuwaiti al-Rai newspaper on Thursday.

Security sources from Kuwait's state security general directorate revealed that the names include Lebanese, Syrians and supporters from other nationalities.

They also include media officials and businessmen.

The support to the recently blacklisted party covers contacting Hizbullah financially and politically and through the media.

Those contacting and meeting party officials or its representatives will also be deported or barred entry to Kuwait, said the sources.

Measures against these figures include blacklisting them by Kuwaiti authorities and thereby preventing their entry to the country, refusing to renew their residency if they are already in the emirate, and deportation.

These measures began a week ago shortly after the Gulf Cooperation Council decided to consider the party as terrorist.

So far, six people have been barred entry to Kuwait and five others did not have their residency permit renewed.

All of these individuals work at a television and daily newspaper. The five members whose residency was not renewed have been ordered to leave Kuwait within a month.

Al-Rai reported that Interior Minister Sheikh Mohammed al-Khaled has granted Kuwait's state security agency “full authority” in implementing the measures against Hizbullah supporters.

The GCC's blacklisting of Hizbullah comes in wake of Saudi Arabia's decision in February to halt an army grant to the Lebanese army over the party's harsh stances against the kingdom and Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil's abstention to vote in favor of Arab League resolutions condemning attacks against Riyadh's embassy in Iran.

The Arab League last week also voted in favor of labeling Hizbullah as a terrorist group, amid the abstention of Lebanon, Iraq, and Algeria.

Saudi Arabia and Gulf countries have also issued travel advisories against Lebanon.

A number of Lebanese expatriates living in these countries have also been deported.

M.T.

G.K.