Contrary to an earlier announcement, the committee did not discuss the issue of the US decision to freeze the assets of the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society. Tabtabai said that penalizing visa traders, applying laws strictly and speeding up the approval of the new labor law in the private sector, will help improve Kuwait’s image abroad. He said the committee began investigating the status of foreign workers in Kuwait and visa trading. It had asked government representatives several questions and will co
ntinue its work by visiting labor departments and then residential areas for laborers like Kheitan.
Meanwhile, statements made on Sunday by the committee member MP Roudhan Al-Roudhan that former and current MPs were suspected to be involved in visa trading triggered mixed reactions among other MPs. Roudhan himself slightly backtracked on his statements saying yesterday that the committee did not discuss specific names during its meeting Sunday. He added that what was discussed was what had been circulated that influential people were behind visa trading and that names mentioned by some newspapers are not
accurate. Roudhan however said that after the investigation is over, names of those involved will be made public.
MP Mohammad Al-Mutair called for applying the law regardless of who is involved in visa trading. He also called for changing the rules of allowing companies and labor recruitment offices to be involved in granting residence permits. He also called for changing the rules of awarding government contracts which forces contractors to offer low prices which eventually negatively affect expatriate manpower. MP Abdulaziz Al-Shayeji said that the names of people allegedly involved in visa trading should not be ann
ounced before the committee completes its investigation. He said the human rights committee did not officially name people and what was there was simply suspicion.
Meanwhile, the committee monitoring alien practices in the assembly met yesterday with a number of transvestites to discuss their problem. The transvestites demanded that their problem should be resolved in a humanitarian way and that they should be offered medical treatment rather than arresting and jailing them.
Member of the committee MP Mohammad Hayef Al-Mutairi said that there are 50 such cases in Kuwait but insisted that the application of the law has greatly minimized the problem. In March, the New York-based Human Rights Watch criticized Kuwait for arresting a number of transvestites and called for scrapping a law that outlaws cross-dressing. The law, an amendment to the penal code that forbids people from imitating the opposite sex, was passed in May last year but was implemented only in November.
In another development, MP Mussallam Al-Barrak criticized what he called a secret government document that was discussed by the council of ministers and "aiming at curbing public freedoms". He said the document speaks of measures to curb issuance of licenses for more newspapers. MP Daifallah Buramia called for holding a special session by the assembly to discuss the document which he said aims at silencing people. Information Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Sabah however denied the existence of such a d
ocument or that it had been discussed by the council of ministers.
