KUWAIT: The Director of the Citizenship Department at the Ministry of Interior, Colonel Abdulrahman Al-Othman, said the decree-in-law amending some provisions of the Amiri Decree (15/1959) regarding the Kuwaiti nationality came after it was studied from all legal aspects and that it aimed at bolstering “the citizenship principle in line with the state general order.” Col Al-Othman, in a statement to KUNA on Friday, said the decree-in-law, approved by the Cabinet on Tuesday, had been drafted due to the keenness on the national identity and preserving it.

Accordingly, the first two paragraphs of Provision 7 were substituted. Articles 8 and 13 of the Amiri Decree (15/1959) state: The first paragraph of Provision 7 stipulates that the wife of a foreigner who acquires the Kuwaiti citizenship is not recognized as a Kuwaiti citizen. His juvenile children are considered Kuwaitis and enjoy the option to uphold their original nationality in adulthood. The second paragraph of the same article says that children who maintain Kuwaiti citizenship are subject to the rules of the previous term.

Provision 8: A foreign woman who marries a Kuwaiti cannot become Kuwaiti. Meanwhile, Jurist Colonel at the MoI, Mohammad Al-Mazyad, told KUNA that any person who acquires Kuwaiti citizenship is subject to the national laws and values, regardless of the duration of holding it. Jurist Col Al-Mazyad said according to a decree and after examination by the minister of interior, a person can be stripped of Kuwaiti citizenship in the cases where he or she has acquired it through fraud, counterfeiting, or false claims. In such a case, a relative who has acquired the citizenship through the same illegal means will also be deprived of it.

This measure is also applicable to persons who commit a disgraceful crime, breach trust, commit state security crime locally or abroad, or offend the sanctity of His Almighty, the Prophets (PBUH), or the esteemed status of His Highness the Amir. The penalty is also applicable to an individual who has been dismissed from his job in the public sector due to dishonesty during the 10 years since being granted Kuwaiti citizenship, in the cases where the state’s higher interest and external security are at stake. Moreover, a naturalized relative will be subject to the same punishment.

The Kuwaiti citizenship will also be withdrawn in the case where the involved person has promoted ideas detrimental to the country’s economic and social systems and affiliated with a foreign entity. It is also applicable to a naturalized relative. Regarding article 13, Jurist Col Al-Mazyad explained that it covers the naturalized Kuwaiti and not the Kuwaiti national according to the first article (pedigree). A Kuwaiti woman who has married to a non-Kuwaiti in the past is entitled to apply for citizenship for her children.

However, in the current law, the article on naturalizing Kuwaiti women’s children has been repealed, and provision 7 (repeated A) says that the minister of interior is entitled to issue a decision stipulating that treating the juvenile of a Kuwaiti mother with residency can be on par with that given to the citizen until he (she) reaches adulthood. Jurist Col Al-Mazyad said that all citizenship applications in the census 65 had been scrapped. Any person who may be stripped of Kuwaiti citizenship will be categorized according to his or her previous nationality. In the case where it is known, he (or she) is referred to the Central Apparatus for Illegal Residents. — KUNA