Kuwait’s stateless back to spotlight after poet’s expulsion

BEIRUT - A US-based member of Kuwait's stateless Bidoon minority, who is a poet, translator and activist, said she is "traumatised" after she was blocked from returning to see her family - a move a rights group decried as an "act of cruelty."

The case put the spotlight again on the situation of Kuwait’s so-called Bidoon community, which is largely made up of descendants of desert nomads considered stateless by the government.

The Bidoon community numbers around 120,000 of Kuwait’s population, according to unofficial estimates.

Mona Kareem, a 35-year-old Kuwaiti-born academic and activist with US citizenship, who has criticised the treatment of the Bidoon, was denied entry to Kuwait on the night of January 3-4.

The young woman was forced to leave on a flight to Beirut after an 11-hour interrogation at Kuwait International Airport during which authorities repeatedly refused to explain their decision.

"Goodbye Kuwait.. again," tweeted Kareem.

Oil-rich Kuwait does not recognise the Bidoon as citizens or foreign nationals, which means they have no political, social or economic rights and cannot apply for passports.

A Kuwaiti security source said that "security concerns" were behind Mona Kareem's expulsion, without giving further details.

"I am traumatised... I can't sleep. I keep getting nightmares. I can't eat," Kareem said by telephone on Thursday after the incident sparked a social media storm.

"I am afraid I won't be allowed back in Kuwait, at least for several years," she said after landing in Beirut, noting that she is due to return to the US next week.

Kareem's family can't travel outside of Kuwait to meet her, and she is not likely to be allowed back anytime soon.

"The Bidoon keep getting mistreated, one generation after another," she said.

Kuwaiti activists are campaigning for the abolition of the central body in charge of the Bidoon.

The campaign gained momentum after MP Osama Zaid received a delegation from the Bidoon in the National Assembly. At the meeting, the delegation demanded an end to the suffering of thousands of people who belong to this group. On the top of their demands was the dissolution of the “Central System for the Remedy of the Situation of Illegal Residents”, which was established in 2010 to control the Bidoon.

The National Assembly meeting caused a stir in Kuwait, encouraging activists to focus on the issue of the Bidoon, denouncing all forms of discrimination the community faces in travel, employment and education.

Kuwaiti writer Ghuneim Farraj al Hussaini said “the Bidoon have the right to education and to live decent lives where they enjoy equality and freedom. There should be no discrimination between them and those who already hold Kuwaiti nationality, so that this injustice does not breed hate and rancour.”

Kuwait watchers say the government bases its refusal to dissolve the apparatus on continued societal division in Kuwait around the Bidoon issue.

A wide segment of Kuwaiti society is said to espouse the official view according to which the Bidoon or their ancestors hail from neighbouring countries, and therefore cannot be dealt with as nationals. The argument is used as justification for their deportation to their presumed countries of origin.

Outspoken blogger

Mona Kareem, who has started a blog on abuses against the Bidoon community, moved to the US in 2011 where she was given a scholarship to pursue higher studies.

She is now doing post-doctoral studies at Tufts University in Massachusetts in the US.

Kareem said she was able to travel to Kuwait with her US passport this past summer to visit her six siblings and parents who still live there.

She was issued a temporary travel document by Kuwaiti authorities, who later refused to renew her papers, pushing her to apply for asylum in the US, she said.

In April last year, she was granted US citizenship and almost immediately started planning a visit to Kuwait to see her family - her first trip home in more than a decade.

She was allowed to enter for a one-month visit last June after signing a pledge that she would keep a low profile and abstain from discussing politics, she said.

"Authorities don't want us to live in Kuwait, they don't want us to leave, they don't want us to get passports and come back," Kareem said.

"Collective punishment has no logic... it's as if they just want us to vanish."

Kareem said authorities told her to board a flight Tuesday night back to Beirut or she could face imprisonment.

She later said that she spoke to a US Embassy official and decided to fly back to Beirut.

The US State Department did not respond to wire service requests for comment.

Amnesty International said Kuwait's treatment of Kareem was "a mean, appalling, and pointless act of cruelty that serves no purpose other than to send Kuwait's Bidoon community the message that they are not welcome in their own country."