KUWAIT CITY, 7 March 2005 — A battle raged in Kuwait yesterday over political rights for its disenfranchised women as supporters and opponents traded heated arguments on the eve of a crucial Parliament meeting.
Women activists and their liberal supporters plan to stage a rally outside Parliament today as the leader of the hard-line Islamic Salaf Alliance threatened to fill the streets with opponents of women’s political rights.
“If the government allows the (pro-women) procession, we are prepared to fill up the Gulf Road (outside Parliament) with people opposed to women’s political rights,” Khaled Sultan Al-Issa told an anti-women’s vote rally late Saturday.
Rula Dashti, the main organizer of the women’s rights rally, said however the procession would go ahead as planned and women fighting for their legitimate entitlements would not be intimidated by “extremists”.
“This is an extremist ideology. They want to hijack this country. Kuwait is for all people of different ideologies. We will organize the procession,” Dashti, chairwoman of the Kuwait Economic Society, said.
Parliament will today discuss a government request to speed up the debate on a women’s rights bill and set a date for its discussion. The bill, approved by the Cabinet last May, calls for amending Article One of the 1962 electoral law which limits voting and candidacy to male citizens whereas the constitution stipulates gender equality.
Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah assured a group of liberal activists he met on Saturday that the government was serious about granting women their political rights.
“He told us the government is working very hard to garner the support needed in parliament to approve women’s rights,” said Khaled Al-Mutairi, leader of the liberal National Democratic Alliance.
In a rare move, the government has launched a media campaign on state-run television and radio stations to win public support for the bill, whose opponents have been holding near-daily public rallies.
