KUWAIT: Kuwait Lawyers Society is leading a public movement to apply pressure on authorities to solve the issue of bedoons (stateless), to go parallel with a proposed law that is reportedly being prepared by a team of led by National Assembly Speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanem, Central Agency for Remedying Illegal Residents' Status President Saleh Al-Fadalah, and the Interior Ministry.

"The society's move comes out of discontentment towards the slow government-parliament move in dealing with the issue, which has started to harm Kuwait's human rights record," said sources within the society. They added that the society feels concerned that the government-parliament preparations of the law might result in 'obsolete solutions' to deal with the issue that are 'unrealistic' and fail to address the humanitarian aspects, based on leaked reports regarding the ongoing preparations.

Meanwhile, the sources said that Kuwait Lawyers Society believes the current proposal to deal with the issue adopts the view of Central Agency and its chairman Fadhalah, noting that the agency has failed to solve the problem for over nine years since it was established. "Instead, it has only been trying to prove that the bedoons have forged their documents to claim right for Kuwaiti citizenships undeservedly," the sources claimed.

The sources said the Central Agency claims it has thousands of document proving its allegations, "yet it did not present real documents as far as the law is concerned proving that [bedoons] hid their official documents and claimed they are stateless. This situation violates human rights and compromises Kuwait's position in international arenas."

By A Saleh