KUWAIT: The Interior Ministry's Assistant Undersecretary for General Security Affairs Maj Gen Abdul Fattah Al-Ali said security inspection campaigns over the past three months resulted in arresting over 47,000 expats in various areas around Kuwait as well as lessening the total number of crimes committed and imposing the respect of law on everybody, especially in areas that accommodate huge numbers of people belonging to a specific nationality, who thought that living in large communities of the same nationality would make them untouchable by law. "We will never tolerate the presence of any communal ghettos on Kuwaiti soil and the law will be imposed by force," he underlined.

Ali added that the inspection campaigns had been carefully planned to raid areas that harbored illegal residents and outlaws and stressed that they were successful thanks to cooperation with other official bodies and ministries. Ali emphasized that one of the most important and significant result of these campaigns was reducing crime rates by at least 24 percent as indicated by various police station records.

Moreover, Ali said that 6,000 out of the 47,000 people arrested during the campaigns had been deported, while wanted people were referred to relevant authorities. "Sixty percent of the people arrested in the campaigns were released onsite after checking their legal statuses and IDs, 30 percent were referred to relevant authorities because they were found wanted and only 10 percent of them, who were mainly marginal laborers, were immediately deported," he explained.

Ali strongly denied abusive treatment of expats detained during the inspection campaigns and stressed that all arrests were videotaped and photographed to document the entire operation. He also stressed that the Interior Ministry's Undersecretary Lt Gen Suleiman Al-Fahd never signs any deportation order unless the decision is backed by photos and documents. - Al-Rai