In contentious case, Kuwait expels Jordanian for protest

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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – Kuwaiti authorities have deported a Jordanian national born in Kuwait for joining an unauthorized protest, an official said on Monday, the latest case to spark outrage over the treatment of foreign workers in this Arab Gulf country.

Police arrested the Jordanian during a protest last week in Kuwait against new government restrictions on unvaccinated people. Asked live on television about the protest, the man expressed his anger at Kuwait’s decision to ban unvaccinated people from public places, including restaurants and shopping malls. The TV clip ricocheted across social media, racking up thousands of views.

It comes just days after the controversy erupted on the arrest of an Egyptian who ranted on social media about the country’s bad weather. Local news channels subsequently reported his eviction.

After days of detention, the Jordanian man was deported for his participation in the banned protest, Tawheed al-Kandari, a media official at Kuwait’s interior ministry, confirmed to The Associated Press, without specifying when the expulsion took place. Kuwaiti state-linked newspaper al-Qabas reported on his deportation flight to Amman, Jordan, on Sunday evening.

In recent days, the case has gained media attention in Kuwait, revealing fault lines over the plight of migrant workers in the country. When the Jordanian’s televised complaint spread online, dozens of citizens lambasted him for what they saw as his ingratitude towards Kuwaiti largesse. Lawmakers rushed to his defense, lamenting what they called the government’s mistreatment of foreigners and an attack on free speech in a country long known for one of the most dynamic politicians in the country. the region.

As across the desert sheikhs of the Persian Gulf, legions of poorly paid foreign workers from the Middle East, Africa and Southeast Asia fuel Kuwait’s economy and serve its small population of one million citizens. . Rights groups say the imbalanced labor system, which links migrants’ residency status to their jobs, makes expatriates particularly vulnerable to arrest, deportation and abuse. On Monday, Kuwait’s interior ministry announced that the government had expelled more than 7,800 foreigners in the first half of 2021 alone for various “violations.”

Hostility towards migrants in Kuwait has become even more intense during the coronavirus pandemic, as expatriates allege strong inequalities in the distribution of vaccines in the country and in travel restrictions induced by the virus. Although vaccinated citizens can come and go, foreigners with valid residence permits have been barred from entering the country for months. The government has promised to lift the ban on residents vaccinated next month.

Last week, the Jordanian man’s father released a statement to Kuwaiti media, pleading for his son’s release.

“Abdullah sees Kuwait as a piece of his own heart,” he wrote of his son, who he says was born and raised to a proud and decorated military family in Kuwait, with an uncle from Kuwaiti resistance during the Iraqi invasion of 1990. He claimed his son had no intention of insulting the country and simply voiced his opinion on vaccines when journalists embarrassed him.

“Despite the grief, I believe in what God wants,” he wrote.

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