Commission strips Kuwaiti citizenship of 1,535 individuals

Kuwait: The Supreme Commission for Nationality on Thursday decided to revoke the citizenship of 1,535 Kuwaitis, an official statement said, hiking the number of those who have been stripped of their nationality to close to 3,000 in just the past two weeks. The commission has been meeting weekly during the past two months and last week it revoked the citizenship of 930 Kuwaitis.

The interior ministry said in a statement on Thursday the decision was taken during a meeting presided over by Acting Premier and Interior and Defense Minister Sheikh Fahad Al-Yousef Al-Sabah. The number of Kuwaitis who have been stripped of their citizenship since the drive began about six months ago is now well over 4,000, based on statements released by the interior ministry and Amiri decrees.

Normally, citizenship is revoked from those who got it by cheating, and then all their descendants automatically lose their citizenship. The commission’s decisions become effective only after they are approved by the Cabinet. There were no reports that the Cabinet had rejected any of the commission’s decisions. Since the end of August, the commission has decided to revoke the citizenship of over 3,500 Kuwaitis. Thursday’s decision was the largest batch so far.

All those who got their citizenship revoked were naturalized Kuwaitis, as the law prohibits revoking the citizenship of original Kuwaitis, nationals who or their ancestors had been in Kuwait before 1920. The process started with very small numbers, but it gained momentum in The interior minister said in press statements in September that none of those citizens appealed against the withdrawal of citizenship because the commission had strong evidence. The government has in the meantime tightened the screws of laws governing naturalization by amending the 1959 nationality law. The amendments also stipulate revoking the citizenship of naturalized Kuwaitis if convicted of a crime related to honor, trust, state security or abusing the Almighty, prophets or HH the Amir.

Meanwhile, the criminal court on Thursday heard a case of a Kuwaiti citizen who added a Syrian boy to his nationality file claiming the boy was his son. The man confessed in court that the boy was a Syrian citizen and a close relative of his wife, adding that he brought the boy to Kuwait in early 1990s when he was just two months old.

Separately, the Anti-Corruption Authority (Nazaha) referred supervisors and employees at the ministry of health to the public prosecution on suspicion of embezzling public funds. Nazaha confirmed, on its X account on Thursday, that it would continue efforts to collect evidence and investigate all well-founded information at its disposal to fight corruption and protect public funds.