Security sources quoted in a report published by Al-Rai yesterday indicated that the fingerprints are required for “security and legal reasons” but did not provide more details aside from the fact that the step was taken “because the fingerprinted residents had no official papers in state departments.” They further indicated while speaking on the condition of anonymity that all those fingerprinted were aged between 20 and 30 years.
Meanwhile, the same department, which is part of the Interior Ministry, continues to receive stateless residents for DNA profiling (genetic fingerprinting) with an average of 120 people a day, sent by the Citizenship General Department, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Justice and the Central Agency for Illegal Residents.
The current plan calls for finalizing all files referred by the aforementioned departments before the end of the year. Meanwhile, Al-Anba reported quoting a Central Agency insider that files of 285 stateless residents have been referred last week to the cabinet for a decision on naturalization.
The source who requested anonymity revealed that these 285 cases were part of 580 files for residents to be naturalized by early July. The parliament passed a bill last March doubling the number of people the government can naturalize each year to a maximum of 4,000.
This came after the cabinet agreed to give priority in granting citizenship to stateless residents who meet the required conditions. Kuwait has a large community of stateless residents who demand citizenship as well as civil and social rights that they are deprived of, given their illegal residence status.
The government in the meantime argues that some of them are Arabs or descendent of Arab people who deliberately disposed of their original passports after coming to Kuwait and now seek citizenship in the oil-rich country.
The Kuwaiti government established the Central Agency for Illegal Residents in 2010 with a five-year ultimatum to sort out the stateless residents’ issue and identify those who meet conditions of naturalization, including residents whose Bedouin ancestors failed to register for citizenship following Kuwait’s independence more than fifty years ago.
The Central Agency adopted measures within a year to grant stateless residents several rights which include obtaining marriage, birth and death certificates, but their inability to help them achieve significant improvement in living conditions prompted several protests last year. The government also adopted last year a new form of security identifications for stateless residents, which were to be used as their main form of identification.
The cards contained color-coded tags referring to the category under which a holder is recognized in state records, including those eligible for naturalization and others about whom the government claims to have proof that they belong to other countries.
In a related note, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs, Dr. Adel Al- Falah, was quoted by Al-Qabas yesterday as assuring that stateless residents in Kuwait will have equal opportunity to perform Hajj this year just as during previous years.
The official’s statement clarified concerns that a quota system of nationalities for pilgrims to be allowed entrance to Saudi Arabia could introduce limits this year.
“The fate of Bedouin pilgrims does not hang on the quotas’ volume,” he said, using the Arabic word for ‘without’ which is often used informally to refer to stateless residents, being a loose reference to the fact that they live without a nationality since birth.
