Work still to do, says US ‘human rights’ report on Kuwait

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KUWAIT CITY, April 14: While the US State Department’s report on human rights for 2021 praised the Kuwaiti government’s measures to punish officials who committed violations, whether in the security or government agencies, it stressed that the government did not implement the anti-corruption law effectively, reports Al-Jarida daily. The report issued yesterday said that the Anti-Corruption Authority “Nazaha” received 431 reports of corruption and referred 13 cases to the Public Prosecution as of November, one case was referred to the courts, and one case was dropped. The report cited what the Kuwait Economic Society indicated that the state loses about 1.2 billion dinars annually due to corruption, “as many serious cases of corruption have occurred.”

The report stated that “Nazaha” continued to refer government officials involved in corrupt practices to the Public Prosecution, including officers from the Ministry of Interior on charges of forging official documents. The report indicated that the Ministry of Interior implemented disciplinary measures, including fines, detention, dismissal or dismissal from professional jobs, stressing at the same time that there were no reports of disappearances from or on behalf of government authorities.

The report revealed that the Ministry of Interior’s Monitoring and Inspection Department received 591 complaints against ministry employees on charges of abuse of power and arbitrary application of the law. It investigated 413 complaints, 71 of which resulted in disciplinary measures, and 96 of them were referred to the courts.

The report pointed out that the Publicity, Media and Publications Affairs Prosecution considered nearly 9,000 cases related to social media or traditional media publications over the past three years. The report explained that local media reported that from January to November 2021, there were 120 suicides, mostly among the migrant worker community. For her part, the US Ambassador to the country, Alina Romanowski, said in a statement on “Twitter” commenting on the report of the US State Department, that defending human rights is in the interest of every country, adding, “While Kuwait continues to make progress in this regard, there is still more work to be done.”

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