Kuwait has taken a distinctly more authoritarian direction since the accession of the new monarch, 84-year-old Emir Mishal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, in December 2023.
Asserting that he would not allow democracy “to be exploited to destroy the state”, the emir suspended parliament on May 10 of last year and announced a revision of the constitution with the aim of ending political gridlock, which he claims has paralysed Kuwait for decades.
Several people who criticised this initiative were arrested, and members of parliament were prosecuted in a wave of repression denounced by Amnesty International.
Nearly 42,000 Kuwaiti nationals have been stripped of their nationality since September, a radical policy shift for the Gulf country. Revocation of citizenship had previously been used in Kuwait, as in other Gulf monarchies, only sporadically and following court rulings, sometimes against political opponents or those accused of terrorism like the detainees held at the US base in Guantanamo, Cuba.
The enactment in December of a legislative amendment authorising forfeiture of citizenship for “‘moral turpitude or dishonesty, or for actions aimed at threatening state security, including criticism of the emir or religious figures”, has broadened the scope for the revocation of citizenship.
A Supreme Committee chaired by the minister of the interior examines cases to establish who has a legal claim to Kuwaiti citizenship. And every week, the names of those stripped of nationality are made public – with anxious Kuwaitis poring over the lists looking for their names or the names of relatives, the Financial Times reported.
Kuwaiti wives
No fewer than 464 citizens were stripped of their nationality in a single day on March 6, including 12 people accused of “illegally” holding dual nationality and 451 said to be guilty of “forgery and fraud”, the Middle East news site Al-Monitor reported.
Kuwait does not allow dual nationality, so those who acquire Kuwaiti citizenship must give up their original nationality.
And these naturalised Kuwaitis have been particularly targeted, notably women who were naturalised after marrying a Kuwaiti. Stripped of their Kuwaiti citizenship, they find themselves stateless and without basic rights – for example, they no longer have access to state health care nor can they renew their children’s enrolment in state schools.
Non-Kuwaitis cannot access the generous social welfare benefits offered by this wealthy petro-monarchy, nor can they own land or hold a majority stake in a company. Some who have lost their nationality have reported having their driving licenses invalidated, or found their access to their bank accounts restricted.
“The speed of these measures and the scale of the number of people affected is unprecedented in Kuwait. The government is proceeding in a haphazard manner,” says Claire Beaugrand, a researcher for the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), at Paris Dauphine University-PSL.
Faced with public alarm over the denaturalisation campaign, the government in December tried to moderate its position concerning spouses naturalised after marriage, promising to restore their pensions and social benefits.
‘Stateless overnight’
All levels of society are affected by the new rules on nationality, according to a report in the Financial Times. The British daily describes the story of Faisal, a Kuwaiti businessman, who has been in despair since having his passport confiscated at the airport as he was about to travel. No reason was given, he says. But his father, a naturalised Kuwaiti, was also stripped of his nationality. “They made me stateless overnight,” Faisal said. “Today, all I can think about is leaving and settling in Dubai.”
Members of the political opposition are among those who have been stripped of Kuwaiti nationality. “Rumour has it in Kuwait that, under the guise of administrative proceedings against ‘fraudulent’ naturalisations, it is people from tribes considered ‘disloyal’ by the authorities who have been denaturalised,” says Beaugrand.
Such people frequently belong to the opposition in parliament.
The denaturalisations are also a reminder of another category of stateless Kuwaitis, the Bidoon, many of whom are descendants of nomadic tribes. Bidoon, literally “without nationality”, have never been able to prove they are Kuwati nationals and have remained in legal limbo for several generations.
Their applications for citizenship are processed by a specific institution that considers them neither citizens nor legal foreign residents. Because of this unsettled status, they are deprived of the social, political and economic rights accorded to the rest of the population. There are an estimated 100,000 Bidoon in Kuwait.
Xenophobic rhetoric
To justify its campaign against foreign nationals, the government at times uses xenophobic rhetoric mirroring that used by the far right in the US and Europe – notably, warning that foreign criminals are taking advantage of the generous welfare benefits meant for Kuwaitis and should be punished.
Kuwait has been “hijacked” by other nationalities, Interior Minister Sheikh Fahad al-Yousef said on Kuwait’s Alrai TV in March. “I will not mention these nationalities. There are nationalities that are foreign to Kuwaiti society – its social life, language, character and social relations.” Yousef, a member of the royal family, cited the danger of undermining the “authentic nature” of Kuwaiti society and generating “lineage confusion”.
The government has even opened a “hotline” to encourage Kuwaitis to report dual nationals and to denounce those they suspect of procuring false documents in order to obtain nationality.
Kuwait’s lagging economy
The government also makes an economic argument to justify its campaign that is sometimes echoed in the media.
“The government and the press describe these measures as a way of reducing state expenditure by reducing the number of citizens benefiting from the generous advantages offered by the Kuwaiti welfare state,” says Beaugrand.
Faced with economic stagnation, the Kuwaiti authorities are worried that they are lagging behind their Gulf neighbours, who are successfully diversifying their economies away from dependence on oil.
“When he came to power, the emir promised to launch economic reforms to boost growth,” notes Beaugrand. But ever since he dissolved parliament, despite promising reforms “we’ve mostly seen denaturalisations”.
This article has been translated from the original in French.
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