Association
According to Human Rights Watch, Kuwaiti authorities recently announced that starting from July 2025, migrant workers will require permission to leave the country. They will have to submit a departure request form to their employer through the Ministry of Interior’s “Ashal” online portal or “Sahel” smartphone application and include the dates for departure and return. Human Rights Watch condemned the decision as an alarming step backward in Kuwait’s migrant worker governance. Instead of dismantling the kafala (visa sponsorship system) in its entirety, the Kuwaiti state is reinforcing it by putting migrant workers even further under the control of their employers and making them more vulnerable to exploitation.
There is no basis to Kuwaiti authorities’ claim that the exit permit will balance the interests of both employers and workers. Rather, the permit enables employers to trap workers in abusive situations and serves as a tool for retaliation.
Expression
On 18th June 2025, civil society called on the Kuwaiti authorities to overturn the unfair sentences handed down against former parliamentarians and expressed grave concerns over the deterioration of civil and political rights in Kuwait. The Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) reported in September 2024 how the current Kuwaiti authorities have increasingly weaponised the legal system against former parliamentarians and political activists. The parliamentarians were simply expressing their opinions on social media networks, demanding a revision to the decision of the Emir, Sheikh Meshaal Al-Ahmad, to suspend the elected National Assembly in May 2024 for up to four years, and suspend Elements 3, 107, 174, and 181 of Article 56 of the 1962 Kuwait Constitution. They also called for an end to the suppression of public freedoms, including freedom of expression on the Internet and beyond.
On 20th April 2025, the Court of Appeal in Kuwait finally issued its decisions on seven cases against five former parliamentarians and two former candidates during the last election of the dissolved National Assembly. The court ordered the imprisonment of Anwar Al-Fikr for three years, Hamad Al-Olayan for two years, Hussain Al-Qallaf for two years, Walid Al-Tabtabaei for four years, and Mesaed Al-Quraifah for four years.
The court considered the cases as national security cases and charged them with insulting and interfering with the authorities and rights of the Emir. The court also sentenced Mesaed Al-Quraifah on charges of insulting the Emir, offending the Minister of Interior, and abusing the use of his phone.
The Court also sentenced Abdullah Fahhad to six months of imprisonment, with suspension of the sentence, for insulting the Jurisdiction. The Court decided to overturn the acquittal and refrain from pronouncing a sentence against Saadoun Hammad on the charges of paying for voters.
On 10th June 2025, Kuwaiti authorities cooperated with Malaysian authorities for the deportation of blogger Mesaed Al-Musaileem, who is a Kuwaiti national. He was recently returned to Kuwait, where he faces a combined total of 30 years in prison for his human rights activism online, and taken into custody. Al-Musaileem, a well-known blogger in Kuwait, was denied the right to refugee status in Bosnia and Herzegovina despite the ample evidence of threats of persecution against him by the Kuwaiti government solely for his peaceful activities on the Internet. GCHR has previously taken up Al-Musaileem’s case and urged authorities in the country where he was living, Bosnia and Herzegovina, to accept his asylum application before his departure to Malaysia. Malaysian authorities forcibly returned him to Kuwait on 31st May 2025, in clear violation of international law regarding the protection of asylum seekers.
On 2nd June 2025, GCHR raised concerns about the escalating trend of revoking the citizenship of thousands of Kuwaiti citizens and their families. In a recent report, GCHR has highlighted the problematic methods of the Kuwaiti government in making decisions to strip citizens of their Kuwaiti nationality after decades of acquiring it legally. France 24 echoed these concerns in a news report, stating that nearly 42,000 Kuwaitis have been stripped of their nationality in just six months and in defiance of international law. France 24 noted that this new policy, which was launched under what it described as the “increasingly authoritarian rule” of Kuwait's new monarch, Emir Mishal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, claims to target foreigners who illegally obtained Kuwaiti citizenship – but naturalised citizens and political opponents are getting caught up in the campaign.
In May 2025, prominent Bedoon rights defender Mohammed Al-Barghash was acquitted in the latest court case against him. The charges against him included allegedly spreading false news and insulting and slandering employees of the Central Apparatus for Illegal Residents’ Affairs, which had initially filed the complaint against him. He has repeatedly faced legal complaints due to his peaceful and legitimate human rights activism, particularly his courageous defence of the civil and human rights of Bedoon citizens.
Last year, on 31st January 2024, the Court of Appeal sentenced Al-Barghash to three years in prison with hard labour, after convicting him of the charges brought against him, namely, spreading fake news, harming the state’s reputation, and misusing a telephone device. He was placed in Central Prison immediately after the verdict.
Shortly after his acquittal in May, in June 2025 Al-Bargash was once again targeted and imprisoned in retaliation against him for a video he posted on X thanking all those who followed up on his case and mentioning his request to meet with the Interior Minister to discuss the injustice imposed on him and all citizens of the Bedoon community. His latest detention was in relation to a 12th May 2025 post on his X account of a photo of his request to meet with the Minister of Interior. In his request he stressed the failure of the Central Apparatus for Illegal Residents’ Affairs to resolve the chronic problems facing the Bedoon community in Kuwait in the last 15 years.
On 2nd June 2025, he received a summons from the State Security Apparatus to report to the Ishbilya Police Station at 8:00 PM that same day, which was later changed to Abdullah Al-Mubarak Police Station. Upon his appearance, he was initially questioned and served with a summons to appear before the Public Prosecution on 11th June 2025.
When he appeared before the Public Prosecution, he was charged with state security offences, and detained in the Central Prison pending the start of his trial. This new case against him is believed to be related to his request to meet with the Minister of the Interior.
Several legal experts in Kuwait confirmed to GCHR that the decision to imprison him is entirely arbitrary and designed to silence his vocal human rights advocacy.