Kuwait to Offer Amnesties to Prisoners in Crowded Jails and to Dissidents

Kuwait will expand the number of prisoners in its penal system who can benefit from an amnesty program next year, in the face of a prison overcrowding problem that is especially hazardous due to the spread of COVID-19. Al Qabas newspaper reported on Tuesday that a new amnesty law would allow inmates serving sentences of three or fewer years, or who have three or fewer years left in their sentences, to be released immediately to their homes, where they would serve out the remainder of their time. An electronic tagging system would ensure that they remain at home. The law will benefit both citizens and the Bedoon – indigenous but stateless residents in the country. And some convicts with foreign citizenship could be deported to their home countries, where they would complete their sentences.

And speaking of Kuwaiti amnesties, Emir Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah has asked the parliament speaker, the prime minister and the head of the Supreme Judicial Council to recommend conditions for granting an amnesty pardoning dissidents in the country. Opposition parliamentarians have demanded that dissidents be pardoned as a condition for their cooperation in passing legislation.