No To Dual Citizenship
After the liberation from Saddam’s heinous occupation in 1991, Saudi’s Middle East Newspaper, Sharq Al-Awsat, published a report that around 120,000 Kuwaitis were living in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. I asked myself at the time about the identities of those Kuwaitis whom we didn’t know, because the ones we know are Kuwaitis who own properties in Makkah or in the town of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) in Madina Al-Munawwah.
Only a few Kuwaitis live there and all of them usually go to Makkah and Madina during religious seasons such as Hajj, Umrah and Ramadan. I then concluded that a majority of these Kuwaitis whom we don’t know came through political naturalization and their number has tripled due to this process, including naturalization through fraudulent means and procreation in large numbers.
In addition, most of them were born in Saudi Arabia where they live and work, but at the same time, they are suckling from the luxuries offered by the State of Kuwait — free houses, medical treatment and even government jobs where they never report for work. We have seen thousands of them coming to Kuwait in buses during elections.
They have been great supporters and tools of success for a relative and tribesman even if he is the worst among the electoral candidates or the one who pays more, not the loyal and sincere people or those with progressive and practical agendas. Kuwait’s authority has been afraid to implement its clearly defined law which prohibits dual citizenship.
This happened when the Saudi authority was oblivious to the dual citizenship issue, until catastrophe befell our contemporary security situation. Due to the victories of ISIS, al-Nusra and al-Qaeda that pose a threat to every regional ruling entity, the GCC countries have awaken and on the top of the list is Saudi Arabia which has announced, through its official spokesperson — Mohammad Jasser Al-Jasser, that “the State (Saudi) will not allow dual citizenship and it will withdraw the citizenship of any Saudi who obtained the citizenship of another country without permission”. Al-Jasser added, “The citizenship withdrawal decision will also be applied on militarymen working for foreign governments without taking permission from the government of Saudi Arabia.” In our role, we congratulate our comrades in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for taking this long-awaited decision. We hope our wellguided government follows suit. I don’t mean taking a decision about the dual citizenship issue, but to enforce the Citizenship Law that it has been ignoring for quite some time for wicked reasons.
We are waiting for one of the silent government’s officials to come out and tell the public that the government intends to implement the Citizenship Law by withdrawing the citizenship of those who hold dual citizenship after being allowed to choose between the Kuwaiti citizenship and the other. Will we see that happening soon? Dual citizenship is unacceptable. We then say, “No to dual citizenship.”
Email: Ali-albaghli@hotmail.com
By: Ali Ahmed Al-Baghli Former Minist
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