Human rights organisations have welcomed a decision by Kuwait's constitutional court last week which overturned a law criminalising "imitation of the opposite sex".
Amnesty International hailed the ruling as "a major breakthrough for transgender rights in the region" and Human Rights Watch...
Blog archive: Kuwait
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21st February 2022
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28th December 2020Following the discovery that a Kuwaiti government minister who uses the title "Doctor" had got his PhD from a bogus university, more dodgy degrees among the Gulf state's citizens have come to light. Videos posted on YouTube show "graduation" ceremonies in Kuwait where...
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20th December 2020A cabinet reshuffle in Kuwait last week saw the appointment of Dr Abdullah Abdul-Samad Marafie as minister in charge of housing. Biographical notes circulated by the government show he has a PhD in management and finance from the American University in London. Marafie has several other academic...
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28th September 2020On Saturday police in the Indian city of Mysore raided a ceremony where more than 100 people dressed in gowns and mortarboards were about to receive fake degrees. The would-be graduates had paid up to 100,000 rupees ($1,357) for doctorates from the bogus International Global Peace University...
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17th June 2020Amnesty International has accused Bahrain and Kuwait of running "roughshod over people's privacy" in their use of surveillance technology during the coronavirus pandemic. The human rights organisation carried out a detailed technical analysis of phone apps in seven Arab states plus France,...
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20th May 2020Kuwait has assigned its National Guard to take over the running of supermarkets where staff have been struck down by the Covid-19 coronavirus. One of those placed under military operation and management is the Khaldiya Cooperative Society which closed its doors ten days ago following the...
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11th May 2020Kuwait has been placed under a round-the-clock curfew following the discovery of a major Covid-19 outbreak among employees at supermarkets. One large Kuwaiti chain, the Khaldya Cooperative Society, shut its doors until further notice after 103 workers – about 40% of its total staff – tested...
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10th May 2020Indian citizens have begun returning home from Arab states in the Gulf as part of a massive operation to repatriate them. Migrant workers in the Gulf have been disproportionately affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and many have been anxious to leave. Some nationalities have been able to do so...
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29th April 2020Thousands of undocumented migrant workers are awaiting repatriation from Kuwait under a government scheme aimed at countering the spread of Covid-19. Crowded living conditions make migrant workers especially vulnerable to infection and the effect of the scheme will be to reduce their numbers...
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20th April 2020Kuwait's health ministry is discriminating between Kuwaitis and non-Kuwaitis in its allocation of treatment for Covid-19 patients, according to a document circulated on social media. The document is a flow chart telling medical staff what to do when someone tests positive for the virus. It...
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17th April 2020Migrant workers are bearing the brunt of the coronavirus epidemic in the wealthy Gulf states. Often living in over-crowded accommodation, they are at particular risk of infection. Many are now also jobless. Some have been deported. Thousands more want to return home – but can't. India rejects...
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14th April 2020Arab states in the Gulf are reporting large numbers of new Covid-19 infections among migrant workers. ● In Bahrain, foreign labourers account for almost half the confirmed cases – more than 600 have tested positive. ● In Kuwait, 679 of the 1,300 confirmed cases are reported to be Indian...
