More than 10,000 people with dual nationality have been stripped of their Kuwait citizenship within 13 years, from 2011 until last month.
Revealing the figures, Kuwait’s Central Agency for Remedying Illegal Residents’ Status (CARIRS) has said that the figures are the result of a full decade of Kuwaiti efforts to address the dual nationality file, VisaGuide.World reports.
The Agency said the figures also emerge from a campaign that started last year in the country’s fight against those who obtain Kuwaiti citizenship illegally.
According to CARIRS, about 1,000 such people have been detected up to this point.
Kuwait does not recognize dual nationality. It means that children with dual nationality will have two years after reaching the age of 18 to decide if they want to retain Kuwaiti nationality or keep their other nationality.
The Director of the Situation Amendment Department in CARIRS, General Muhammad Al-Wahib, told the agency that a total of 6,054 residents changed their status to Saudi nationality, a total of 1,188 to Iraqi nationality, followed by 868 to Syrian nationality, 131 to Iranian nationality, 53 to Jordanian nationality as well as 1,962 to other nationalities.
Al-Wahib said that these statistics also include persons who have their parents or relatives who obtain documents from different nationalities and do not include those who have other relatives with proven nationality.
In March this year, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Defense and acting Minister of Interior Sheikh Fahad Yousef Al-Sabah assured that citizenship would not be stripped off without verification of identification.
The Supreme Committee for Nationality is upholding the law, ensuring fair treatment for dual nationalities and citizenship forgers, and promoting impartiality and law enforcement.
Of a total of 4.6 million people who live in Kuwait, about 3.2 million individuals are foreigners.
Kuwait Investigating Thousands of Citizenship Fraud Cases
In March this year, authorities in Kuwait announced that they plan to reexamine the citizenship files after uncovering a large number of cases of fraudulently obtained citizenship.
Through this campaign, authorities in Kuwait expect to find a large number of people who obtained citizenship in this country by obtaining fake documents.
In this regard, Rakan Al-Abdullah, a Kuwaiti journalist, told The Media Line that fraudulent activities in terms of obtaining citizenship in Kuwait have brought many problems for this country.
The matter is not limited to a few thousand who forged their official documents to obtain Kuwaiti citizenship. Rather, it goes beyond that to the fact that many of them bring their children and wives and do more forgery for them in order to also obtain Kuwaiti citizenship. l
Al-Abdullah said that citizenship fraud poses major security risks, as some of those who acquired citizenship in Kuwait may be foreign agents or criminals.