SINCE the small Gulf states became independent from Britain in the latter half of the 20th century, their ruling families have sought fresh methods for keeping their subjects in check. They might close a newspaper, confiscate passports, or lock up the most troublesome. Now, increasingly, they are stripping dissidents—and their families—of citizenship, leaving many of them stateless.
Bahrain is an energetic stripper. Its Sunni royals have dangled the threat of statelessness over its Shia majority to suppress an uprising launched in 2011, during the Arab spring. In 2014 it stripped 21 people of their nationality. A year later the number was up tenfold. “Gulf rulers have turned people from citizens into subservient subjects,” says Abdulhadi Khalaf, a former Bahraini parliamentarian whose citizenship was revoked in 2012 and now lives safely in Sweden. “Our passports are not a birthright. They are part of the ruler’s prerogative.”
Neighbouring states are following suit. Kuwait’s ruling Al-Sabah family have deprived 120 of their people of their nationality in the past two years, says Nawaf al-Hendal, who runs Kuwait Watch, a local...Continue reading
Source: Middle East and Africa http://ift.tt/2fC3l4U
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