KUWAIT CITY – Kuwait has begun canceling the driving licenses of foreign students who have graduated and working housewives, tightening already strict rules for expatriates, a daily on Friday cited a top official as saying. “The traffic department has started canceling the driving licenses” of those people, Interior Ministry Assistant Undersecretary for Traffic Affairs Major General Abdulfattah Al-Ali told Al-Anbaa newspaper. Ali said the measure was taken because the department found that expats given licenses as students have now started working, and the same for some housewives, “which amounts to an act of forgery”. He estimated that “tens of thousands” of driving licenses will be withdrawn. For nearly a decade, Kuwait has imposed strict conditions on the eligibility of its 2.6 million expats to drive. Most foreigners are required to hold a university degree, earn 400 dinars ($1,400) a month and have lived legally in the emirate for at least two years before being able to drive legally. Students and housewives with children had been among those exempted from the regulations, along with engineers, judges, lawyers and journalists. But since his appointment some two months ago, Ali has led a campaign in which hundreds of expatriates have been deported without a court order for committing “grave” traffic offenses such as driving without a license and jumping red lights. Kuwaiti citizens who commit similar traffic offenses can have their vehicles impounded, but only under a court order. The Kuwait Society for Human Rights has called on the government to halt the deportations, describing them as “oppressive”. But the campaign has received strong backing from the pro-government parliament, with some MPs calling Ali a “hero”. Meanwhile, Kuwait warned on Friday that it would not allow any unlicensed protest marches over a court ruling next week which will say whether a new electoral system introduced by the country's ruler is constitutional. Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah used emergency powers in October last year to change voting rules, six weeks before the major oil producer was due to hold parliamentary elections. “Whatever the decision of the constitutional court, we will never allow any rallies or marches outside Erada Square,” a statement from the Interior Ministry said, referring to a designated protest area opposite parliament. – Agencies
