The new unpeople

EVERY Monday, opponents of Kuwait’s government wait with trepidation. The cabinet meets in the afternoon, and at least three times since the summer has decided to withdraw nationality from some of its most outspoken critics. Fifty-nine people lost their Kuwaiti papers in July, 14 in August and 18 last month. Who will be next?

Similar tactics against dissenters have been adopted, or are being considered, elsewhere in the Gulf. Bahrain stripped 31 opposition figures of nationality in 2012 and another nine last August. Oman last month issued a nationality law allowing it to withdraw passports from anyone working “against the interest of Oman.” And Saudi Arabia is said to be considering such steps for some security-related offences.

The message is clear: dissent (whether of the liberal or Islamist variety) is not just illegal, it is treason. In a region with generous benefits, it means the denial of basic services. “The issue of citizenship in Kuwait—it’s life,” says Hamad al-Bloshi, a political-science professor at Kuwait University. “Your work, your home, your children’s school, your health care… All these things, they can take from you.” Those affected have little redress. Courts in Bahrain and Kuwait have ruled that they have no jurisdiction over decisions on nationality. Oman’s law stipulates that a government committee should deal with the matter outside the judicial system.

In Kuwait the majority of recent cases involved vocal opponents of the government. The first revocation on July 21st hit Ahmad al-Shammri, owner of the opposition television channel, al-Youm, which had over the summer angered authorities by breaking a gag order in a report of an alleged coup plot within the ruling Al Sabah family. Now stateless, Mr al-Shammri lost his ownership of the station, which has been shut down.

Others affected include Nabil al-Awadhi, an outspoken Islamist preacher, and dozens of members of opposition-stronghold tribes such as the Al Mutair, the Al Shammar, and the Al Ajman. In September the cabinet withdrew citizenship from Saad al-Ajmi, a confidant of the country’s most popular opposition leader, Musallam al-Barrack. Mr Ajmi told local media he had been targeted for political reasons, but Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah al-Mubarak al-Sabah, Kuwait’s minister of state for cabinet affairs, said that Mr Ajmi illegally held two nationalities, Kuwaiti and Saudi, each under different names.

In Bahrain most of the 31 citizens stripped of their nationality in 2012 were abroad, but ten were left stateless in the country, unable to undertake any official business, be it registering newborns or getting a job. They cannot pass nationality to their children, who will be born into statelessness. On October 28th a court ordered the ten to be deported from the country as illegal residents; it is not clear how or to where they will travel without documents.

For Ahmed al-Mukhaini, a former adviser to Oman’s Shura Council, the rules are the embodiment of Gulf rentier states, which are financed by oil revenues rather than by taxing citizens and offer generous privileges in exchange for loyalty. “If you want to enjoy the perks, you have to abide by certain regulations. If you want to be my citizen, keep quiet.”

The recent revocations could politicise the already touchy question of statelessness in the Gulf. Kuwait, for example, is home to more than 100,000 so-called bidoon (those “without” papers), non-citizens whose parents did not register with authorities at independence or later migrated to the country. They mostly scrape by with black-market jobs.

The bidoon have often been accused of treason, for instance of supporting Iran or backing Saddam Hussein during the 1990 invasion of Kuwait. The new stateless could further stigmatise some of the Gulf’s most vulnerable populations. The United Arab Emirates has tried to export its problem by convincing the Comoros to grant citizenship to some of its bidoon, supposedly an “interim” measure which nevertheless raises fears that some could be deported to the islands. The Kuwaiti government declined to comment on reports that it is about to follow suit.