History of the bidoon in Kuwait

History of the bidoon in Kuwait

Until the mid-1980s the government treated the bidun in Kuwait as lawful residents of Kuwait whose claims to citizenship were being considered, a status that distinguished them not only from other foreign residents but also from other groups of stateless residents, such as Palestinians from Gaza. The number of Bidun was included in the total number of Kuwaiti citizens in the Ministry of Planning's Annual Statistical Abstract, and Bidun were issued with documents identifying them as Bidun. With the exception of voting rights they received the benefits of full citizens, including subsidized housing, education, and health services. Bidun made up the vast majority of the rank and file of all branches of the police and military, and were eligible for temporary passports under article 17 of Passport Law 11/1962. Intermarriage among Bidun and Kuwaiti citizens was and is common, and because of the vagaries of the implementation of the Nationality Law it is not unusual for a single family to have members with different citizenship statuses: original citizenship, citizenship by naturalization, and Bidun.

In 1985 the government began applying provisions of Alien Residence Law 17/1959 to the Bidun and issued a series of regulations stripping the Bidun of almost all their previous rights and benefits. In 1986 the government severely restricted Bidun's eligibility for travel documents. It also fired government employees not employed by the army or the police who could not produce valid passports, whether issued by Kuwait or another country, and instructed private employers to do the same. In 1987 the government began refusing to issue Bidun new or renewal driver's licenses or register their cars, and began ending public education for Bidun children and instructing private schools to require valid residency permits. In 1988 the ban on public education was extended to the university, and Kuwaiti clubs and associations were instructed to dismiss their Bidun members. Also beginning in 1988, statistical data on Bidun in the government's Annual Statistical Abstract was transferred from the Kuwaiti category to alien population categories.

Restrictions increased in the aftermath of the 1990-1991 Iraqi occupation of Kuwait. Bidun who fled to Iraq to escape the air war found themselves stranded there when Kuwait refused to allow the reentry of all but a few. Bidun government employees were dismissed en masse, and only a small portion were later rehired. Beginning in 1993 Bidun were also required to pay fees to utilize health care centers, although those services remained free for Kuwaiti citizens. Bidun not employed by the government found themselves facing serious obstacles when seeking to register births, marriages, divorces, and deaths, because they lacked the required identification and were typically required to go through lengthy security checks before the Ministry of Interior would issue a letter of no objection.

1959: the initial citizenship registry

When Kuwait regulated its citizenship on the eve of independence from Britain, it sowed the seeds of statelessness for thousands of residents. As discussed earlier, in the 1959-1960 period, in preparation for Kuwait's independence in 1961, the authorities attempted to register all residents of the country and identify citizens. The special committees formed to determine the citizenship status of residents were not able to make decisions on many of the applications. Slightly over one third of the native population was recognized as full citizens and another third was granted partialcitizenship rights. The remainder were considered "potential" citizens; told that they were being considered for citizenship and issued documents that identified them as "without citizenship," (bedoon jinsiyya). Nevertheless, they were treated as Kuwaiti citizens, regarding residence rights, employment and access to social services, including free education and health care.

Bedoon jinsiyya was later shortened to "Bedoon". Most understood the designation to be temporary until their claims were verified. That was how the label was understood by government agencies and the courts, as well as by ordinary citizens. The government repeatedly stated its intention to grant citizenship to the Bedoons. Committees to re-examine their citizenship applications were to be formed. In the meantime, they were to be treated exactly as citizens with the exception of the vote. For these reasons, most people did not pay much attention to the differentiation between citizens and Bedoons and many were not aware of it. Members of the same family had different citizenship statuses: some were "first class", others "second class" and still others were Bedoons.16 Bedoons for the most part could not be distinguished in their appearance from native Kuwaitis. Nor could they be distinguished by their clan names, since clan members could belong to any of those citizenship categories.

"First class" and "second class" designations are not official designations but the popular phrases in Kuwait. First- class citizens are those entitled to citizenship under Article 1 of the 1959 Citizenship Law. The main legal requirement is to prove that they, or their male ancestors, have settled in Kuwait since 1920. Second class citizens are naturalized; those upon whom the government confers citizenship under other clauses of the law. Second-class citizens may not vote and they May Be easily stripped of their citizenship.

Although the Bedoons continued to be treated as citizens and were repeatedly promised formal citizenship, their applications for citizenship were mostly shelved. The requirement most difficult for Bedoons to meet was to provide proof that an applicant's father was a "settled" resident of Kuwait before 1920 and that he maintained continuous residence in the country until the time of the application. In 1920, most residents of Kuwait's outlying areas were illiterate. Involved in limited agricultural activity, animal husbandry and small scale commodity trading with nomads of the hinterland, these residents, many of whom were nomadic, conducted their business transactions verbally and had no reason to maintain records related to their citizenship. For centuries, they had near complete freedom of movement in what is now Kuwait and the surrounding countries. Requiring them to prove that they were settled in Kuwait before 1920 was in itself a difficult requirement to satisfy. Although thousands of Bedoons who were able during the registration period to provideconvincing evidence to satisfy this condition, they were still denied citizenship through the government's failure to act on their applications.

1960s: amendments to the citizenship law

Another key factor in denying Bedoons citizenship was the government's frequent amendment of the Citizenship Law in order to restrict eligibility. By repeatedly amending the Citizenship Law between 1960 and 1987, the government made it successively more difficult to qualify and required Bedoons to satisfy each additional requirement imposed by new amendments. The government rejected the notion that Bedoons acquired vested rights under the law before it was amended, contending that citizenship is a privilege conferred by an administrative decision and not a right acquired merely by satisfying the requirements stated in law. By 1987, thousands of those who could have qualified under the 1959 citizenship law, for example, no longer qualified under the terms of more stringent regulation, which were applied retroactively. One of the most drastic changes was repealing the right to citizenship for children born in Kuwait to stateless fathers and Kuwaiti mothers.

As detailed earlier, until 1988, the Kuwaiti government did not announce the total number of Bedoons, who were counted among the total Kuwaiti citizen population. In late 1988, the government began publicly reporting separate figures for citizens and Bedoons. When government agencies started to treat Bedoons as foreigners, courts overruled government decisions in the few cases brought before the courts involving issues of Bedoon legal status. Since citizenship and residence issues are excluded by law from the competence of Kuwaiti courts, the only time a court could look into the Bedoons legal status was when some other issue was brought before it and where the legal status of the defendant was significant. In 1987, a criminal court acquitted a Bedoon man of the charge of unlawful residence:

[T]he defendant was born in Kuwait without citizenship (bedoon jinsiyya), and so were his wife and children .... [I]ndividuals so described are residents of Kuwait who are commonly perceived as neither citizens nor foreigners. No evidence was presented [to the effect] that the defendant carried Iraqi citizenship or any citizenship other than Kuwaiti citizenship. For these reasons, the court ruled that the defendant's presence in Kuwait was legitimate, just as the residence of all the other citizens without citizenship is legitimate. Since his entry into the country was lawful and his residence thereof legitimate, the court finds the charge he was accused of without basis in the law and he therefore is declared not guilty.19

In another case in 1988, the Appeals Court rejected the government's attempt to treat a Bedoon as a foreigner in the application of the Foreign Residents Act of 1968, and recognized the special status to which the Bedoons were entitled. In this landmark June 1988 decision, the Appeals Court ruled:

There is no doubt that the foreigner who is subject to deportation according to Article 79 of the Penal Code and the Foreign Residents' Act is the foreigner who belongs to a state other than the State of Kuwait and carries the citizenship of that state. Non-Kuwaiti residents of Kuwait who do not belong to another state and do not hold its citizenship but who are deprived of Kuwaiti citizenship for one reason or another-but enjoying nevertheless the same privileges as Kuwaiti citizens, except for those privileges that derive directly from citizenship-are treated in a special way that is distinct from the treatment of foreigners. They cannot be legitimately considered foreigners in applying Article 79 of the Penal Code or the Foreign Residents Act.

The government ignored the courts' opinions and continued to issue deportation orders administratively, i.e., without securing court decisions to deport. In order to legitimize its decision ending the equal treatment of Bedoons, the government introduced new labels to describe the Bedoons. Among the terms adopted in the 1980s were "Non-Kuwaiti" and "Of Undetermined Nationality," neither of which were used much outside the bureaucracy: both designations were meant to deny the Bedoons' link to Kuwait as citizens. The labels implied that they were not stateless residents who may be entitled to special consideration. Since 1993, governmentdocuments have referred to Bedoons as simply "illegal residents," similar to the other illegal aliens who are citizens of other states and as such liable to immediate imprisonment and summary deportation. In April 1995, the Kuwaiti press reported that since liberation, over 24,000 Bedoons had been issued expulsion orders, according to official sources.

1985: denationalizing of the bedoon

Until the mid-1980s, Bedoons were treated as Kuwaiti citizens with regard to freedom of their travel-they were issued temporary passports20-and eligibility for government employment and services, including education, health care and welfare. Bedoons constituted an overwhelming majority in the army and police; over ninety percent of the rank and file, although not the officers, were Bedoons. Only Kuwaiti citizens and Bedoons were allowed to enlist; foreigners were hired only as advisers, usually on fixed contracts.21

In the fall of 1985, the Kuwaiti government adopted a policy proposed by Shaikh Salem al-Sabah, then-Minister of Interior, aimed at driving the Bedoons out of the country. The policy details were kept secret, but its effect was felt as it was implemented gradually over the following months and years.22

In April 1986, the government restricted eligibility for travel documents (laissez passers) which used to be issued to the Bedoons. Under the new rules, these documents, the closest thing to a passport proving a Bedoon's Kuwaiti nationality, were given only to those Bedoons traveling abroad for officially-sponsored medical treatment, in addition to long-term employees of the army and police. All others were made ineligible to receive these travel documents unless they renounced their right to return to Kuwait.

The crackdown intensified. Later in 1986, the government ruled that all its employees had to produce valid passports or risk losing their jobs. Private businesses were also told to adopt a similar policy. Since Bedoons were not issued passports, thousands were dismissed from their jobs between 1987 and 1990 for failure to produce passports, Kuwaiti or otherwise. Only those Bedoons serving in the army and police were allowed to keep their jobs and were issued residency papers.

In 1987, the Interior Ministry banned the issuing or renewal of driver's licenses to Bedoons, except for those in the military or police. The order also banned the registration of cars to Bedoons. This ban has been more vigorously enforced since liberation in February 1991. In addition to its arbitrary nature, the ban on driving hascaused considerable hardships because of the limited publi*transportation system. Most Bedoons live in areas far from the City of Kuwait, where most services, including hospitals and government offices, are located.

Public education to which Kuwaiti citizens are entitled is denied to the children of the Bedoons, most of whom are too poor to afford private education. Moreover, private schools have been instructed not to accept pupils without valid residency permits. For the time being, some private schools have occasionally overlooked this requirement on a case-by-case basis, thus allowing those families with the means to do so to send their children to school.

In 1988, Bedoons were barred also from attending universities, a ban that has continued since then, depriving thousands of eligible college-age students of university education. Because they no longer receive passports, these students may not leave the country to seek education elsewhere (They can only get passports if they renounced their right to return to Kuwait). This hardship is compounded by the fact that there are no private colleges in the country.

Also in 1988, all Kuwaiti associations, including the Kuwaiti Medical Association and the Lawyers Association, were instructed by the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs to dismiss their Bedoon members; most of them complied.

Case studies

Human Rights Watch interviewed scores of Bedoons who were among the early victims of these policies. S. al-Shatti, a Bedoon who provided documents showing that he has lived in Kuwait since 1937, was dismissed from his government job in 1988; his passport was not renewed and his driver's license was withdrawn. These actions were taken without due process of law and despite the fact that since 1959 he has been married to a Kuwaiti citizen (They have two daughters, ages thirty and eighteen years, and three sons, ages twenty nine, twenty three and twelve-all born in Kuwait). Although a citizen, the wife may not pass on her citizenship to her children or husband. In addition, she may not sponsor her husband and adult children for more than one year to enable them to stay in Kuwait legally. Since her children are also classified as Bedoons and as such may not be issued driver's licenses, only she can legally drive the family car.23

Another case is that of F. H., who was born in 1957 in Kuwait to a Kuwaiti mother and a Bedoon father. After her parents divorced in 1958, her mother became her only supporter since the family lost touch with the father soon after the divorce. Although the marriage of her parents was dissolved, F.H. was not granted citizenshipas is provided for in the law.24 Moreover, in 1988, she was dismissed from her job at the Ministry of Communications for lack of citizenship papers.25

The case of Ghaleb Hussein Jaber, a Bedoon obstetrician and gynecologist, illustrates some of the forms of harassment inflicted on the Bedoons during the late 1980s. Although the government appeared to have reasons other than his Bedoon status to harass Dr. Jaber, he was vulnerable to retaliation because of his status. He was born in Kuwait in 1954, but since his father was not able to satisfy citizenship committees with proof that he qualified for citizenship, all the family members were classified as Bedoons. In keeping with the practice at the time, Ghaleb, classified as Bedoon, was nevertheless treated as a citizen: he studied in Kuwaiti publi*schools and, in 1974, was sent abroad on a government scholarship to study medicine, travelling on a Kuwaiti passport. Upon graduating from Egypt's Alexandria University in 1981, he returned to Kuwait and practiced medicine at government hospitals, first at al-Farwaniyya General Hospital, then at the Maternity Care Division of the Ministry of Health, and finally at al-Addan General Hospital.

Dr. Jaber was active in the movement to restore democracy in Kuwait, after the National Assembly was dissolved (in 1976 and later in 1986). He was also active in the Kuwaiti Medical Association, where he expressed publi*opposition to the Kuwaiti government's support for Saddam Hussein in the war with Iran. He argued that the Association should provide medical assistance to the victims on both sides.26 This position alienated Dr. Jaber and brought AbOUT pressure from the Iraqi government, whose embassy in Kuwait was very influential at the time.

In July 1988, Dr. Jaber was dismissed from his job when he failed to produce citizenship papers. He was also dismissed from the Kuwaiti Medical Association, at the order of the Ministry of Health, for the same reasons. Although he was married to a Kuwaiti citizen with whom they had two children, he was ordered deported.

On August 16, 1988, Dr. Jaber was arrested, his Kuwaiti passport confiscated, and he was taken to the Deportation Prison in Kuwait. He was told that he would be deported to Iraq, where the Kuwaiti government contended his familyoriginally came from. It was obvious that he faced jail or a worse fate in Iraq, if he were to be deported there, since his criticism of Saddam Hussein was well known.

He spent a month in the crowded, dismal Deportation Prison, where more than 600 other deportees-many of them Bedoons-were held. While awaiting deportation, the South Yemeni government agreed to his request to be deported to Yemen instead of Iraq, and he arrived in Aden on September 13, 1988.27 He was granted a temporary Yemeni passport and was able to practice medicine in Yemen and later the United Arab Emirates. Dr. Jaber was able to avoid the fate of most deported Bedoons-who were left on the Iraqi/Kuwaiti border-because of his marketable skills and connections within Kuwait and abroad.

Since his deportation in 1988, Dr. Jaber has attempted repeatedly, but unsuccessfully, to get permission to return to Kuwait, where he had lived most of his life, where his wife is a citizen, and where many of his close relatives live. In early 1993, he was granted asylum in New Zealand; he expects to get New Zealand citizenship in 1996.28

Some Bedoons dismissed from their jobs following 1985 attempted to secure foreign passports enabling them to return to work, for the government at the time promised that those with foreign passports would be re-hired. Some sought foreign passports to help them emigrate to more hospitable lands. Those Bedoons who were members of clans straddling the borders of neighboring countries-Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Syria-sought to acquire passports from those countries. Some, with family ties in these countries, were able to take advantage of their more liberal citizenship laws. Others, with only dubious links to these countries, probably resorted to questionable means to acquire passports. In desperation, some Bedoons broke the law and paid large sums to secure foreign passports, apparently illegally in some cases, according to Bedoons interviewed by Human Rights Watch.29 There have been several cases in the United States and Europe in which Bedoons who had been stranded without Kuwaiti travel documents tried to immigrate using apparently false passports, resulting in their detention by immigration authorities.

1990: the Iraqi occuption and the liberation of Kuwait

On the eve of the Iraqi invasion on August 2, 1990, most of the Bedoons were living in abject poverty, having been dismissed in large numbers from their jobs in the civilian government and private sector. They were also living under the threat of deportation. In September 1990, the Iraqi occupation authorities ordered, under the penalty of death, all noncitizen residents of Kuwait to join the Popular Army, a militia that was formed to support the Iraqi Army. Failure to provide evidence of registration with the militia was grounds for immediate imprisonment. While few Bedoons may have registered with the Popular Army willingly, out of a need for a job or for other reasons, those who joined have convincingly said that they feared for their lives and liberty if they did not register-a fear that Kuwaiti citizens did not have to face since the Iraqi authorities did not require them to register or serve. In addition, some Bedoons who in fact did register and may have collected salaries have pointed out that they never served in the Iraqi militia, which provided support in guard duty in markets and other public places. While none of the Bedoons interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that they joined the Popular Army voluntarily, some said that they knew of others who did "because of the way they had been treated by their Kuwaiti brothers in the five years before the invasion," according to one interviewee, a former military man who stayed in Kuwait during the invasion.30

Seizing on the fact that a few individual Bedoons joined the Popular Army, many Kuwaits have indicted all Bedoons for collaboration. Anti-Bedoon policies took a drasti*turn to the worse and their persecution intensified. In their hunt for collaborators, Kuwaiti authorities and individuals have overlooked the fact that Bedoons fought valiantly against the Iraqi invasion. Close to one third of all native Kuwaitis killed by Iraqi forces were Bedoons. Thousands of Bedoons who served in the military and police were taken prisoner by the Iraqi occupying forces. Many are still missing and others are stranded abroad after their release from Iraqi detention because Kuwait refuses to permit their return. The martial law trials, held in the months following the war, failed to prove the government's often repeated claim that Bedoons as a group collaborated. The prosecutors and the martial law courts utilized draconian measures to convict defendants of collaboration, which was so broadly defined as to include minor acts of association with the enemy. For example, school teachers and nurses who worked during the occupation were charged with collaboration. A martial law court sentenced to fifteen years in prison a man accusedof wearing, during the occupation, a T-shirt with a picture of Saddam Hussein on it. Yet only twenty Bedoons were convicted, a minuscule fraction of the community and a figure comparable to that of The Twenty Kuwaiti citizens also convicted of collaboration. A twenty-eight-year-old Bedoon man, unemployed since 1984 when he was dismissed from his job in the Ministry of Education, told Human Rights Watch that it was true that there were a few Bedoons who collaborated: "There were Kuwaiti, Bedoon and other collaborators but .... the Bedoons are always the scapegoats."

Some Kuwaiti officials blamed the Bedoons for the army's failure to stop the Iraqi invasion, since the Bedoons constituted the overwhelming majority of rank and file-although not the officers-of the armed forces. These officials privately questioned the loyalty of the Bedoons to Kuwait. But such accusations ignore both basic facts that Iraq's military power was far greater than Kuwait's and that many Bedoon soldiers died resisting the invasion. A Bedoon former government employee, who stayed in Kuwait throughout the occupation, told Human Rights Watch:

Some Kuwaiti officials may say, and even believe, that most Bedoons have Iraqi origins; but when Iraq invaded on August 2, the Bedoons opposed Iraq. If they had felt loyal to Iraq, they could have fought with Iraq. But in fact, all Bedoons reported to their military bases on August 2 and many of those killed or taken prisoner by the Iraqis were Bedoons. The problem was that officers did not have orders to fight, and that top officers, including the Chief of Staff and his deputy, fled.34

As mentioned earlier, many Bedoons resisted the Iraqi occupation and many fell defending the country; nearly one third of those killed by the Iraqi occupiers were Bedoons. Some risked their lives smuggling arms, sensitive information and government officials in and out of the country. Bedoons who were arrested by the Iraqi occupiers were largely ignored by Kuwait. If they were allowed to return to Kuwait at all, they were not always treated like their citizen brothers. A Bedoonformer POW told Human Rights Watch that when the Iraqi government repatriated Bedoon soldiers following the end of the war, the returning POWs were subjected to indignities by Kuwaiti officials. As POWs arrived at the airport and border, the government differentiated between citizens and Bedoons by lining them up separately. Moreover, he said,

We were shocked to find out that our families-unlike the families of our brothers the POWs who were Kuwaiti citizens-had not been taken care of by the government. Our Iraqi jailers treated us the same; at first they tried to separate Bedoons and treat them better, but the Bedoon POWs refused the preferential treatment. We could have escaped or received better treatment if we had said that we were not Kuwaiti. Before we were taken to Iraq, we were kept at the Juvenile Detention Facility [in Kuwait] and the Iraqis asked who was Bedoon; they would have let them go. They [the Bedoons] wouldn't say it; they wanted the same fate as the rest of the Kuwaitis. We celebrated Kuwait's liberation but were shocked at how we were received. We thought that the government and the country had changed. Yet you hear many people talk only about those who collaborated.

The Iraqi Popular Army

On the eve of the Iraqi invasion on August 2, 1990, most of the Bedoons had been living in abject poverty, because of the economic deprivation caused by the massdismissals. They were also under the threat of deportation from their own country. In September 1990, the Iraqi occupation authorities ordered, under the penalty of death, all non-Kuwaiti citizens living in Kuwait to join the Popular Army, the militia that supported the Iraqi Army. Failure to provide evidence of registration with the militia was grounds for immediate imprisonment. Some Bedoons therefore registered with the Popular Army. While some may have joined voluntarily, many felt they did not have a choice. Still many Bedoons joined the Kuwaiti resistance against the Iraqi occupiers and many died at the hands of the occupation forces. Out of 320 people known to have been killed in resistance acts, eighty two were Bedoons.2

Since Kuwait's liberation in February 1991, the policy introduced in 1980s was accelerated in an attempt to drive remaining Bedoon residents out of the country. All the Bedoons who had been employed by the Kuwaiti government were dismissed en masse, retroactively from August 2, 1990, the day Iraq invaded. Other than those re-instated by the police and the military, very few have been rehired by their former employers. Only a fraction of those who used to serve in the military and security forces have been rehired. In May 1995, it was officially estimated that 25 percent of Kuwait's twenty-thousand-strong army were Bedoons3, from a pre-war high of nearly 80 percent. Kuwaiti officials have made it known that they wish to reduce the number of Bedoons in the armed forces. A senior official called for the armed forces to be "kuwaitized", not by granting citizenship to Bedoons, but by replacing them with Kuwaiti citizens.

Because a few Bedoons joined the Iraqi Militia known as the Popular Army-most of whom were in fact coerced by the Iraqi government to join-the whole community has been placed under indictment for collaboration, and under the threat of eviction from Kuwait. When after liberation the Kuwaiti government gave residency permits to foreigners, Bedoons were deemed ineligible for these permitsbecause they could not produce foreign passports. This was a dramatic reversal, since for decades they had been treated as citizens and as such exempted from the need to secure a residency permit. While awaiting their fate, Bedoons are not allowed to work or to receive welfare, and their children are not allowed to go to school. Since they no longer carry valid documents, they are subject to immediate arrest at police checkpoints, forcing many into self-imposed house arrest.

1991: barring the return of the bedoon after liberation

During the seven-month Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, most residents of Kuwait fled to neighboring countries to escape the threat of war and the atrocities of the Iraqi occupiers. Most of Kuwait's 570,000 citizens sought refuge in Saudi Arabia and the neighboring Gulf states, while most of the foreign residents went back to their home countries. Lacking travel documents to enable to them to leave or travel through Saudi Arabia, most of the 260,000 Bedoons were not able to leave Kuwait, except to enter Iraq. Having annexed Kuwait as its "Nineteenth Province," Iraq naturally did not require passports from those coming from Kuwait.

Access to Saudi Arabia was extremely restricted for the Bedoons, who were frequently turned away or interned at the border. Saudi authorities permitted entry into its territory to only those Bedoons who were approved by the Kuwaiti Reception Committee, a committee set up by the Kuwaiti government-in-exile in the Saudi town of al-Khafji, near the Kuwaiti-Saudi border. The committee usually approved only Bedoons who could demonstrate that they had been on active military duty. However, carrying documents showing that a person was in the military or security forces was quite risky. Iraqi occupation forces automatically detained all those found in Kuwait with military identification papers. This led many military Bedoons to limit their movement and hide their military identification papers. Those who fled the country to Saudi Arabia therefore took great risks. They were frequently motivated by a desire to join the liberation forces or take care of medical emergencies.

Once they reached Saudi Arabia, arriving Bedoons were interned at a camp near the border while their requests for admission were being investigated.36 A. al-Adwani, a thirty-eight-old former soldier, fled Kuwait in September 1990 with his wife-a Kuwaiti citizen-and four children, to escape arrest by the Iraqi occupiers. They entered Saudi Arabia through al-Khafji-where most Kuwaitis entered Saudi Arabia-but for four months they were not allowed beyond the border. During the four months, he said,

I, my pregnant wife, and four children had to live from inside our car, in a barb-wire-fence camp which we were not allowed to leave. At some point there were two hundred and sixty families-some 1,500 persons, all apparently Bedoons and most from the military-in this camp. Eventually some 200 families were allowed into the country. The remaining 50-60 families-all Bedoons-could not, including us. Each family was three-to-eight members strong. We were still at the camp when the Iraqis were able to penetrate Saudi defenses and briefly occupy al-Khafji [in January 1991]. Many of the families in the camp took advantage of the chaos and escaped the camp into Saudi Arabia.37

In addition, as a Bedoon who remained in Kuwait throughout the occupation explained to Human Rights Watch, the Iraqi authorities required those who wanted to cross into Saudi Arabia to surrender their passports before being allowed to leave: "Since the Bedoons did not have these documents, the only place to which they could leave was Iraq." Most Bedoons, he explained, stayed until just before the air war started on January 17, 1991, when they sought refuge in Iraqi villages and other remote areas where they thought the fighting would not spread. Besides, many Bedoons have distant relatives-more accurately fellow tribesmen-in Iraq. The two large tribes Shammar and Aneza, to which many Bedoons belong, are spread between Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Syria.38

The overwhelming majority of the Bedoons whose return has been blocked by the Kuwaiti government still express their desire to return to Kuwait, where most were born, lived most of their lives or have close family ties. Some of them have managed to secure refugee status in other countries, but most have not. Frequently, Human Rights Watch received information about Bedoons detained in immigration facilities around the world, because they lack authenti*travel documents.

While Kuwaiti citizens returned following the liberation of Kuwait on February 26, 1991, most of the Bedoons who attempted to go back were blocked at the Kuwaiti borders. In the months following liberation, thousands of Bedoons were stranded in refugee camps at the border. A number of them had been detained by Iraqi occupying forces, taken to Iraq during the occupation and then released after the war.

Thousands of Bedoons, refused admission into Kuwait, were stranded for eight months at a displaced persons camp in the middle of the desert at al-Abdali border post. The population at the camp fluctuated, reaching close to 5,000 in May 1991, and included families with small infants. The numbers declined as the majority of its residents decided to wait in more hospitable surroundings in Iraq while the Kuwaiti government deliberated on their fate. Having heard the news about the mistreatment of the Bedoons at the hands of their Kuwaiti brothers, many left the camp because they feared for their safety if they were to enter Kuwait. By the time the campwas dismantled in October, only six hundred residents remained, most of whom were admitted, at the behest of international humanitarian organizations, into Kuwait.

Kuwait's refusal to permit the repatriation of Bedoons interned by the Iraqi government during its occupation of Kuwait is in clear violation of its legal duty under Article 134 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which requires all signatories, "upon the close of hostilities or occupation, to ensure the return of all internees to their last place of residence."

There is no precise figure of how many Bedoons, refused re-entry, are stranded outside Kuwait today; estimates range from 130,000 and 160,000. Kuwaiti statistics put the number of Bedoons at 260,000 at the time of the invasion on August 2, 1990. Using a growth rate of 3.5 percent, the total number of the Bedoons would be about 311,000 in mid-1995. Since the number of Bedoons remaining in Kuwait is estimated at between 150,000 and 180,000, then the number of Bedoons outside the country is in the 130,000-160,000 range. While the majority of the Bedoons stranded outside Kuwait are in Iraq-because it was the only country they could flee to-several thousands are known to be in Iran and smaller numbers in other Gulf states, Canada, the U.S., New Zealand, the U.K., Australia and Scandinavian countries.

Since Kuwait's liberation, thousands of Bedoons have tried to return to Kuwait, but were turned back at the border. In October 1994, several thousand Bedoons living in Iraq assembled near the Kuwaiti-Iraqi border demanding to be re-admitted into Kuwait. Their demands were rejected. Many more have petitioned Kuwaiti authorities but most petitions were denied, including petitions from former soldiers and spouses of Kuwaiti citizens. Thousands of families have been separated because Kuwait rejects most family re-unification requests.

2000 law

In May 2000, the Kuwaiti National Assembly passed amendments to the Nationality Law which were intended to be the final statement on which Bidun would be eligible for naturalization, and in June 2000 the Prince of Kuwait issued a Prince order to amend the 15/1959 citizenship law by Prince order Number 43 on 2000 which amend article 4 of the citizenship law,in 27th of June 2000 the Ministry of Interior ended a nine month program during which Bidun who signed affidavits admitting to a foreign nationality and renouncing claims to Kuwait nationality could apply for a five year residency permit and other benefits.

The government of Kuwait have stated it is their intention to assimilate the bidoon, granting them full citizenship. In May 2000 up to 36,000 bidoon who had been resident in Kuwait since 1965 were granted citizenship, and 2001 the same rights were extended to bidoon husbands of Kuwaiti women. The numbers granted citizenship have since Fallen To between 600 and 2000 per year. In May 2000 the Government introduced legislation to attempt to RESOLVE the issue of the bidoon. This included provision annually to extend citizenship to up to 2,000 bidoon who meet certain criteria. In 2004 the government approved free education for all children of bidoon parents and announced that bidoon would receive free healthcare starting in 2005.

2003 law

During 2003, Kuwait made limited ProgresS in addressing the long-standing issue of the stateless Bidoon. The government relaxed the 2,000-person annual cap to permit 5,500 Bidoon from three special categories (sons of female citizens married to Bidoon, those whose male relatives are citizens, and wives of citizens) to apply for citizenship. In another positive step, the government naturalized 1,600 Bidoon. Although the law allows the change of status for up to 2,000 Bidoon each year, Kuwait lowered the cap to only 600 persons in 2002.

The Ministry of Defense also approved citizenship for some 400 Bidoon who fought against Iraq during the 1991 invasion of Kuwait, shelving another proposal to naturalize posthumously those whose remains had been identified. If approved, naturalization of Bidoon killed in action would allow surviving family members to become Kuwaiti citizens.

2008 bill

On December 4, 2008, MPs Hassan Jawhar, Musallam Al-Barrak, Marzouq AlـHubaini, Ali Al-Deqbasi, and Abdullah AlـBarghash submitted a draft law calling for the granting of Kuwaiti citizenship to all bidun (stateless) residents in the country. The bill proposes that citizenship be granted to all bidun who were included in the 1965 census and who have no criminal record. The new draft law differs from previous bills as it does not impose any restrictions on the naturalization of bidun and does not set a ceiling for the number of bidun that can be granted citizenship. They also suggested that the families of individuals who have died in service to the country be naturalized.

In addition, the lawmakers affirmed their belief that the families of POWs and the children of those who were martyred during the invasion be granted citizenship. The latest statistics reveal that more than 80,000 bidun currently reside in Kuwait.