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Sunday 16 February 2014 - 07:22

Kuwait is following in Saudi Arabia’s footsteps... Incriminating the terrorists and opening the doors of prisons widely

Story Code : 352179
Kuwait is following in Saudi Arabia’s footsteps... Incriminating the terrorists and opening the doors of prisons widely
After the Royal Decree that was issued by Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz that says any Saudi person fighting abroad should undergo five to twenty years imprisonment as a criminalization, here is the State of Kuwait considering taking the same step according to Nabil Al-Fadel, a member of the parliament, who made a proposal in this regard. 

We do not know if Qatar will act likewise, because it was the one supporting the Jihad in Syria most with money and weapons and is still doing so. In fact, we did not mention the United Arab Emirates and the Sultanate of Oman because they have taken a less enthusiastic position that is closer to just being mediators, and if Oman withdrew from the Syria’s system of friends early and apologized for not accepting an invitation to attend the Geneva II conference, the United Arab Emirates moved away from the Syrian crisis, and continued its secret contacts with the regime, though it remained in the framework of Syria’s system of friends. 

The problem is that these decrees and proposals are being issued abruptly and three years after the start of the Syrian crisis, which began as a popular peaceful uprising with legitimate demands for reform and democratic change and turned into a struggle for power, not to mention the arrival of thousands of terrorists from Islamic countries and from Gulf countries in particular in it. 

We believe that there are two reasons for this shift in the positions of the major Gulf States such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait: 

*First: the governments became deeply convinced that the Syrian crisis will last long, that the two parties will not succeed in solving it in favor of any of them, and that the prospects for the survival of the Syrian regime and its continuation are now stronger than that of its fall, after it remained steadfast all these years and after it achieved gains on the ground, thanks to the support of its allies, the Russians, the Iranians and Hezbollah. This comes in addition to the fact that its army was united, and all the bets on its division and its collapse were beaten, at a time when America and its European allies threw out any military solution so as not to face a vacuum that might exist after dropping the regime and thus repeating the Libyan scenario and before it the Afghan and Iraqi ones. 

*Second: They fear the return of those terrorists to their home countries and exploding an armed revolution demanding justice and equality in the distribution of wealth, expanding the circle of participation in governance, and applying more stringently the Islamic law and anti-corruption laws, or forming quasi-independent Islamic emirates on the Syrian land that would be a springboard for offensive operations against the West and their regimes themselves. 

Perhaps, the case of Kuwait may be different from the case of its neighbor Saudi Arabia, because the government was not involved officially in the Syrian crisis directly, and the Kuwaiti government did not take enthusiastic positions to support the fighters on the Syrian land, and preferred to distance itself from interfering in the conflict against the Syrian regime, so as not to outbreak a Sunni-Shiite sectarian conflict on its territory. This comes because the proportion of Shiites reach to more than thirty-five percent, and there are those who say that it is more than that, and it is an organized, active and politicized sect. 

Yet, some Sunni Islamist Kuwaiti groups had sent money to support the fighters as part of the Free Syrian Army and the Islamic fronts, also some Kuwaiti media played a role provoking young people to join the combating fronts to accelerate the fall of the regime that is killing its people and is stemming from sectarian premises against the Sunnis, according to them. 

It is clear that the Gulf States began to abandon their people fighting in Syria, who are now considered as “outcasts” and “criminals” by their governments after they were heroes at the beginning of the crisis, and the message of these countries to them is clear: We do not want you to stay alive, and we prefer that you continue your terrorist attacks to death or go to other fronts if for any reason the chances of fighting in Syria were no longer found, and if you decided to go back to your country, you will never be welcomed with flowers and blossoms, but you will rather go immediately from the airport to the prisons and detention centers to spend the rest of your lives there. 

These young people are not the victims of the Fatwas that have been issued over the past three years in the mosques, forums, public lectures and television screens by militant and well-known preachers, as their opposition people are spreading in an organized campaign through television. Yet, most of the preachers and clerics remained silent after the issuance of the Saudi Royal Decree and the anti-terrorism laws that incriminate them as well so as to undergo the same punishment, as they disowned their previous calls to young people to commit terrorist attacks in Syria. Those young people are the victims of their own governments, which contributed to misleading them whether in a good or a bad will, as stated in the royal decrees and the provisions and articles of the anti-terrorism laws. 

The acts of some Gulf governments are contradicting much and are difficultly understood; they are still pumping billions to arm fighters in Syria and sending lethal modern weapons and at the same time they do not want their youth to take part in the fighting, without providing any justifications or explanations for this position that is to be supported with evidence and legitimate bonds. It might either be a legitimate fighting, a duty, and an obligatory for every Muslim, regardless of his country or nationality, or might be an illegal fighting. Thus, preventing it in this case includes everyone without any exception, for discrimination here condemns those who are differentiating and includes in some aspects a racist suspicion. 

The governments are obliged to protect, care for, and look after their citizens and not to abandon them and to turn them into “criminals” after encouraging them to commit this “crime” through the powerful media tool and the political positions that are publicly supporting the fighting. 

There are more than ten thousand fighters from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States who are fighting in Syria, and incriminating them and putting them in prison, if they returned alive, requires building new detention centers because of their large number, and this will come at the expense of building hospitals, schools, modern universities, and drainage systems, and of providing water and electricity as well. 

If the Gulf governments fear of the danger represented in returning these fighters to their own countries alive, and want to isolate them in detention centers, they will have to worry more, because their danger will increase and their hatred will be enlarged, after abandoning them and dealing with them as criminals and terrorists, while they were being treated as terrorists and martyrs who fulfilled their duties to support their brethrens who belong to the same sect.
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