KUWAIT
CONFIDENTIAL
Report by HM Embassy, Kuwait
General Observations
1. On 29 August 1976, the Kuwait Government announced a number of constitutional changes including the dissolution of the National Assembly and the introduction of fairly tough regulations governing the freedom of the press. Since then, life has been rather more difficult for those accustomed to the free expression of their political opinions. It is too early to say yet whether controls will gradually ease, although the signs are that they will.
2.
Kuwait's record is least admirable in the area of racial discrimination. Kuwait operates a system of what if it were a Western country would be termed apartheid, according to which full rights in the political, economic and social sense are vested only in the minority of the population who are of Kuwaiti nationality. Non-Kuwaitis admittedly have access up to a point to the country's relatively advanced social welfare system, but their political and economic rights are restricted (the latter including eg the right to own property in Kuwait or trade on the local stock market) and there is also a wide range of areas (including commerce, and civil and criminal law) in which a more nebulous form of discrimination is in practice operated against them. Kuwaiti nationality can be granted to members of the non-Kuwaiti community, but in practice this is a very limited concession involving less than 50 people a year.
Right No.
(i)
Imprisonment without trial for more than a limited period is rare in Kuwait, especially for political offences, although in recent months a number of people have been detained for short periods on suspicion of such offences.
(ii) Torture, apart from the occasional (and
mostly unintentional) heavy-handedness by police with criminal suspects, is virtually unknown in Kuwait.
(iii) Slavery has been abolished in Kuwait
and does not as far as we know exist even unofficially.
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