Well, to briefly define this mechanism approved in 2006, it is part of the work of the UN Human Rights Commission which allows member states to provide a 20-page report describing human rights in their territories – a 10 page report with recommendations on human rights and a 10-page report including a summary of all information provided by NGOs. HRC is responsible for periodically reviewing the files of 48 countries every four years.
What has been said about Kuwait? What are the recommendations made by other countries? So many issues were discussed including freedom of speech, torture, free Internet, Kuwaiti women married to non-Kuwaitis, bedoons, labor rights, withdrawing citizenship, establishing a supreme human rights organization and endorsing some international protocols and agreements.
Recommendations were made by many countries including the US, France, Denmark, Hungary, Spain and others. Following this issue for years, I noticed the progress of human rights in Kuwait is subject to public administration problems and bureaucracy that has caused considerable retreat in development.
For instance, Hungary recommended establishing a special national organization for human rights, which is a good idea to place the whole issue in the hands of only one body instead of scattering its responsibility amongst the ministries of interior, social affairs, foreign affairs and justice.
Notably, this idea has been kept in drawers of the parliamentary human rights committee since 1996 and the government has not taken any positive moves towards achieving it so far, which caused a lot of embarrassment with international organizations because the ministries mentioned above are too busy to give due proper care and attention to human rights.
Despite progress made in some fields like ranking Kuwait 46th in the international human development index in 2014 compared to 63rd in 2011, Kuwait still has many duties and the government still has a lot of challenges in view of its achievement as a ‘Center of Humanity’, which was achieved thanks to the efforts of HH the Amir.
So many officials have been media stars and in office for years without even telling the difference between international obligations and their selfish love of the country, which was reflected by creating the slogan ‘Kuwait is for Kuwaitis’! We still have some officials who keep making racist anti-expat statements as if they are living in a secluded world away from human communications through social media networks! — Translated by Kuwait Times from Al-Jarida
By Mudaffar Abdullah
