Bedoon (stateless)

The Bedoon (Arabic: بدون Bidūn Arabic: بدون جنسية, "without nationality") are stateless people found in several Middle Eastern countries, particularly in Kuwait, Iraq,^[1] and Saudi Arabia.^[2] Kuwait has the largest number of stateless people in the entire region.^[3][4] The Bedoon issue in Kuwait is largely sectarian.^[5][6][7][8] The Kuwaiti Bedoon crisis resembles the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar (Burma).^[9]

Kuwait

Sectarian origin

The State of Kuwait formally has an official Nationality Law which grants non-nationals a legal pathway to obtain citizenship.^[10] However, access to citizenship in Kuwait is autocratically controlled by the Al Sabah ruling family, it is not subject to any external regulatory supervision.^[11][10] The naturalization provisions within the Nationality Law are arbitrarily implemented and lack transparency.^[10][11] The lack of transparency prevents non-nationals from receiving a fair opportunity to obtain citizenship.^[12][11] Consequently, the Al Sabah ruling family have been able to manipulate naturalization for politically-motivated reasons.^{[11][13][14][15][16][12][17][18][19]} In the three decades after independence in 1961, the Al Sabah ruling family naturalized hundreds of thousands of foreign Bedouin immigrants predominantly from Saudi Arabia.^{[15][20][11][17][13][18][14][12][19][21]} By the year 1980, as many as 200,000 immigrants were naturalized in Kuwait.^[20] Throughout the 1980s, the Al Sabah's politically-motivated naturalization policy continued.^[20][11] The exact number of naturalizations is unknown but it is estimated that up to 400,000 immigrants were illegally naturalized in Kuwait.^[21][15] The naturalizations were not regulated nor sanctioned by Kuwaiti law.^{[11][13][15][21]} The foreign Bedouin immigrants were mainly naturalized to alter the demographic makeup of the citizen population in a way that makes the power of the Al Sabah ruling family more secure.^{[16][11][13][15]} As a result of the politically-motivated naturalizations, the number of naturalized citizens exceeds the number of Bedoon in Kuwait.^[12] The Al Sabah ruling family actively encouraged foreign Bedouin immigrants to migrate to Kuwait,^[20] the Al Sabah ruling family favored naturalizing Bedouin immigrants because they were considered loyal to the ruling family unlike the politically active Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian expats in Kuwait.^[20] The naturalized citizens were predominantly Sunni Saudi immigrants from southern tribes.^[19][15][13] Accordingly, there are no stateless Bedoon in Kuwait belonging to the Ajman tribe.^[13]

Most stateless Bedoon in Kuwait belong to northern tribes.^{[22][23][24][25][26][27][28]} The northern tribes are predominantly Shia Muslims.^[29] A minority of stateless Bedoon in Kuwait belong to Kuwait's 'Ajam community.^[30] The Kuwaiti judicial system's lack of authority to rule on citizenship further complicates the Bedoon crisis, leaving Bedoon no access to the judiciary to present evidence and plead their case for citizenship.^[12] Although non-nationals constitute 70% of Kuwait's total population, the Al Sabah ruling family persistently denies citizenship to most non-nationals including those who fully satisfy the requirements for naturalization as stipulated in the state's official Nationality Law. The Kuwaiti authorities permit the forgeries of hundreds of thousands of politically-motivated naturalizations,^[12][21] while simultaneously denying citizenship to the Bedoon.^[12][21] The politically-motivated naturalizations were noted by the United Nations , political activists, scholars, researchers, and even members of the Al Sabah family.^{[12][11][13][15][16][14][31][17][20][18][21]} It is widely considered a form of deliberate demographic engineering. It has been likened to Bahrain's politically-motivated naturalization policy.^[11][16][19] Within the GCC countries, politically-motivated naturalization policies are referred to as "political naturalization" (التجنيس السياسي).^[11]

It is widely believed that the Bedoon in Kuwait are denied citizenship mainly because most Bedoon are Shia Muslims.^{[5][32][6][7][22][8]} The Bedoon issue in Kuwait is largely sectarian.^{[6][5][7][22][33][8]} From 1965 until 1985, the Bedoon were treated like Kuwaiti citizens and guaranteed citizenship, they had free access to education, health care and all other privileges of Kuwaiti citizens. By 1985 at the height of the Iran–Iraq War, the Bedoon were suddenly reclassified as "foreigners" in the Kuwaiti government's databases and denied Kuwaiti citizenship.

60-80% of Kuwait's Bedoon are Shia Muslims.^{[5][6][32][22][8]} Many Bedoon in Kuwait are pressured to hide their Shia Muslim background.^[34] The Bedoon issue in Kuwait “overlaps with historic sensitivities about Iraqi influence inside Kuwait; many who continue to be denied Kuwaiti nationality are believed to have originated from Iraq”.^[35] The stateless Bedoon are generally categorized into three groups: stateless tribespeople, stateless police/military, and the stateless children of Kuwaiti women who married Bedoon men.^[36] The stateless Bedoon constituted 80-90% of the Kuwaiti Army in the 1970s and 1980s up until the 1990 Gulf War.^[36] At the time, Kuwaiti government preferred to identify these stateless people as "Bedoon".^[36][37]

Under the terms of the Kuwait Nationality Law 15/1959, all the Bedoon in Kuwait are eligible for Kuwaiti nationality by naturalization.^[9] Kuwait's Bedoon believe that most stateless people who get naturalized are Sunnis of Persian descent or tribal Saudis, but not Bedoon of Iraqi tribal ancestry.^[38]

Ethnic cleansing

According to several human rights organizations, the State of Kuwait is committing ethnic cleansing and genocide against the stateless Bedoon.^[3][25][39] Since 1986, the Kuwaiti government has refused to grant any form of documentation to the Bedoon including birth certificates, death certificates, identity cards, marriage certificates, and driving licences.^[39] The Kuwaiti Bedoon crisis resembles the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar (Burma).^[9] The Bedoon face many restrictions in employment and travel.^[39] They are not permitted to educate their children in public schools and public universities.^[39] The Bedoon are banned from obtaining driving licenses.^[39] In recent years, the rate of suicide among Bedoon has sharply risen.^[39] In 1995, the British government reported that there are over 300,000 stateless Bedoon.^[40] According to Human Rights Watch in 2000, Kuwait has produced 300,000 stateless Bedoon.^[4] According to the Kuwaiti government, there are only 93,000 documented Bedoon in Kuwait. There have been various reports of disappearances and mass graves of stateless Bedoon, therefore it is believed that the Kuwaiti government kidnapped and murdered many Bedoon and buried them in mass graves.^{[3][41][42][43][44][45][28]}

From 1965 until 1985, the Bedoon were treated like Kuwaiti citizens and guaranteed citizenship, they had free access to education, health care and all other privileges of Kuwaiti citizens.^[39] At the height of the Iran–Iraq War, the Bedoon were reclassified as "foreigners" in the Kuwaiti government's databases and denied Kuwaiti citizenship.^[39] The Kuwaiti government has actively engaged in an ethnic cleansing policy against the Bedoon.^[39] The government policy is to impose false nationalities (legally ineffective) on the Bedoon.^[46] In 1985, the then emir Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah escaped an assassination attempt. Later that same year, the government changed the Bedoon's status from that of legal residents without nationality to illegal residents.^[47] By 1986, the Bedoon were fully excluded from the same social and economic rights enjoyed by Kuwaiti citizens because the Al Sabah ruling family needed to isolate the Bedoon from the rest of the society. The Iran–Iraq War threatened Kuwait's internal stability and the country feared the sectarian background of the stateless Bedoon.^[47] The stateless Bedoon constituted 80-90% of the Kuwaiti Army in the 1970s and 1980s up until the 1990 Gulf War.^[36]

In the year 1995, the British government formally announced that there are more than 300,000 stateless Bedoon from Kuwait.^[40] At the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, it was announced that the Al Sabah ruling family deported 150,000 stateless Bedoon to refugee camps in the Kuwaiti desert near the Iraqi border with minimal water, insufficient food, and no basic shelter.^[40][28] The Kuwaiti authorities also threatened to murder the stateless Bedoon if they returned to their houses in Kuwait City.^[40][28] As a result, many of the stateless Bedoon fled to Iraq where they still remain stateless people even today.^[48][1]

MP George Galloway stated:^[40]

Of all the human rights atrocities committed by the ruling family in Kuwait, the worst and the greatest is that against the people known as the Bedoons. There are more than 300,000 Bedoons--one third of Kuwait's native population. Half of them--150,000--have been driven into refugee camps in the desert across the Iraqi border by the regime and left there to bake and to rot. The other 150,000 are treated not as second-class or even fifth- class citizens but not as any sort of citizen. They are bereft of all rights.^[40]

It is a scandal that almost no one in the world cares a thing about the plight of 300,000 people, 150,000 of them cast out of the land in which they have lived. Many were born to Kuwaiti mothers, and many of those families have lived in the Kuwaiti area for many centuries. Indeed, given the ruling family's penchant for spending time on the Riviera or in the west end of London, many of them have spent a great deal more time in Kuwait than many of the members of the ruling family.^[40]

At the time, Human Rights Watch reported the following:^[40]

"The totality of the treatment of the Bedoons amounts to a policy of denationalization of native residents, relegating them to an apartheid-like existence in their own country. The Kuwaiti government policy of harassment and intimidation of the Bedoons and of denying them the right to lawful residence, employment, travel and movement, contravene basic principles of human rights . . . Denial of citizenship to the Bedoons clearly violates international law . . . Denial of citizenship and lawful residence to Bedoon husbands and children of women who are Kuwaiti citizens violates rules against gender-based discrimination."^[40]

The report continues:^[40]

"Denying Bedoons the right to petition the courts to challenge governmental decisions regarding their claims to citizenship and lawful residence in the country violates the universal right to due process of law and equality before the law.^[40] By retroactively implementing restrictive citizenship and residency laws, Kuwaiti authorities deprive Bedoons of their vested rights to state citizenhip and residence."^[40]

Human rights organizations have severely criticized Kuwait for its handling of the issue.^[39] The Bedoon issue is considered a major humanitarian crisis due to the repressive policies of the Al Sabah ruling family.^[3]

In 2004, the Bedoon accounted for 40% of the Kuwaiti Army.^[49] There were allegedly 110,729 "documented" Bedoon in Kuwait. All stateless Bedoon are at risk of persecution and breach of human rights.^[50]

Although the Al Sabah ruling family claims that it will naturalize up to 4,000 stateless Bedoon per year, this remains highly unlikely in reality.^[38][51] In 2019, the Iranian embassy in Kuwait announced that it offers Iranian citizenship to stateless Bedoon of Iranian ancestry.^[52][53]

Iraq

Immediately after the 1991 Gulf War, many stateless Bedoon from Kuwait migrated to Iraq, most with no recognized nationality or official papers.^[1] There are currently tens of thousands of Kuwaiti stateless Bedoon living in Iraq.^[1] The process to obtain Iraqi citizenship is much simpler than Kuwait due to the presence of judicial court systems reviewing citizenship.^[1] Since August 2017, the UNCHR has been coordinating with Iraqi NGOs to help stateless Bedoon receive Iraqi citizenship.^[1]

United Arab Emirates

According to Federal Law No. 17 of the United Arab Emirates Citizenship and Passport Law of Year 1972, any Arab who resided in the Trucial States prior to 1925 is eligible to obtain UAE citizenship.^[54] Many stateless people who lived in the UAE have failed to obtain Emirati passports, either because they have failed to demonstrate that they lived in the region prior to 1925, their roots cannot be traced back to the tribal region, or because they arrived to the region after 1925. Stateless are generally considered immigrants from Baloch or Iranian origin by the UAE. The UAE has also deported some Bedoon people after the Arab Spring.^[55] Although they are not considered Emirati citizens, their status and residence in UAE is legalized. Stateless who are not able to obtain any passport are offered the Comorian passport for free through a government initiative for a citizenship by investment deal worth million of dollars with the government of Comoros and enjoy certain citizenship privileges such as subsidized education and access to government jobs in the UAE.^[56][57][58]

Saudi Arabia

Bedoon in Saudi Arabia are not considered Saudi citizens and therefore have no benefits. It has revoked citizenship of certain Saudis in the past too, which means these people become Bidoon. However, they have the right to education, free healthcare , and access to jobs that are not exclusive to citizens. Most of these Bedoon are displaced from Yemen or Jordan and Syria. ^[59][60]

Qatar

Qatar has a number of stateless people living within its borders. Qatar has not helped them out; instead it has imprisoned many of them.^[61]

Bahrain

Like neighbouring Qatar, Bahrain also has a number of stateless people, some of whom were dissidents.^[62]

See also

• Non-citizens (Latvia)

Notes

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