A bill that aims to grant civil rights to almost 100,000 stateless Arabs in Kuwait was stymied yesterday because too few MPs turned up to discuss it.

The debate had been scheduled for December 10 to coincide with 
International Human Rights Day but only 26 MPs and five ministers were present – two short of a quorum. (The full parliament consists of 49 elected MPs and 16 ministers.) After waiting half an hour the Speaker adjourned the session.

The stateless people, known as bidoon or bedoun (from the Arabic word for “without”), are long-term residents who have not been recognised under Kuwait’s 1959 nationality law. Their problem was explained more fully in a Human Rights Watch report nine years ago and, more recently in a US State Department report.

According to the Kuwait Times, the bill that MPs were due to consider yesterday “stipulates granting a majority of Bedouns permanent residence permit to live in Kuwait, the right to free medication, education and work. It also grants them the right to obtain birth and death certificates, attest their marriage certificates, obtain a driver's licence and a passport.”

Some MPs oppose the bill and the government is also said to have some reservations, which may partly explain the absenteeism. But there were also claims yesterday that the interior minister had sabotaged the session by imposing a security blockade around the parliament building. This was ostensibly to prevent the bidoon and their supporters from holding a demonstration but – accidentally or intentionally – it may have prevented some MPs from arriving in time.

The Kuwait Times says:

MP Hassan Jowhar, head of the parliamentary committee for bedouns, regretted that the long-awaited session was aborted on the anniversary of the Universal Declaration for Human Rights. "It's unfortunate, as if we are telling the world that we are against human rights" Jowhar said.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 11 December 2009.