Kuwait health officials announced that the country may use technology that apparently can “detect” sexual orientation in order to block gays from entering the country, the International Business Times reports. Yousouf Mindkar, director of public health at the Kuwaiti health ministry, said that the routine clinical screenings will be given to expatriates coming into the Gulf Cooperate Countries, which will include tests to identify LGBT people. If they identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, they will be banned. “Health centres conduct the routine medical check to assess the health of the expatriates when they come into the GCC countries,” Mindkar said, according to Gulf News. “However, we will take stricter measures that will help us detect gays who will be then barred from entering Kuwait or any of the GCC member states.” Mindkar did not specifically say how measures will detect homosexuality or how they will technically work.
The GCC is a political and economic union of Arab states, including countries Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Emirates, Oman and Bahrain. The GCC has outlawed all homosexual activities, the IBT reports. In Kuwait specifically, homosexual acts are criminalized and those who are under 21 and violate the anti-gay law can be jailed for up to 10 years. “How is this even going to work? Is it purely visual (this is very confusing in certain cases)?” the Atlantic Wire’s Alexander Abad-Santos writes. “Doesn’t Kuwait know that plenty of LGBT people have spent years living in closets and pretending to be people they’re not? Is there a lie detector test? And we wouldn’t want to be the ones to break it to Mindkar that gay people come from the loins of straight people, meaning any attempt to keep your country gay-free is all but impossible.”
Amnesty International, the worldwide human rights organization, has called a request from a senior Kuwaiti health official to introduce a “gay detector test” in airports “outrageous” and urge its rejection. The proposal would add a new, required test to the existing medical assessments, which would be designed to keep LGBT emigrants out of Gulf Corporation Countries. “This proposal will only further stigmatize people who already suffer extremely high levels of discrimination and abuse on the grounds of their real or perceived sexual orientation of gender identity,” said Philip Luther, Middle East and North Africa Director at Amnesty International. According to a statement from Amnesty, the “gay detector test” would ban anyone found to be homosexual, transgender, or a cross-dresser from entering the country. “Advanced and civilized countries do not persecute LGBT people, either within their own country or at the border,” Ross Murray—Director of Religion, Faith, and Values at GLAAD—told 429Magazine. “Kuwait is one of 78 countries that has made being LGBT a crime, and now this discriminatory mindset is being applied to the country’s immigration system where it unfairly targets migrant workers,” added Murray. “We have seen international public outcry about Uganda and Russia’s treatment of LGBT people, and we should expect the world to stand in solidarity with LGBT people, in Kuwait or wherever they are.”
As do many Gulf countries, Kuwait has a ban on homosexuality. Those who violate the ban risk up to 10 years in prison. MPs in Kuwait have spoken out against Amnesty International for criticizing proposed medical tests to detect and ban gay and trans people from entering Kuwait, and other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. MP Abdul Rahman Al Jiran said: “The decision to bar homosexuals from entering Kuwait is a sovereign decision. Amnesty International should take care of lofty and noble goals for which it was established, leave aside homosexuality and deviations and stop defending delinquents.” According to Gulf News, the MP continued: “The organization should heed the annual rates of births outside the institution of marriage in Europe and abortions as well as the high rates of under age mothers and other moral crimes forbidden by all divine religions.” Another MP, Mohammad Al Jabri, also said that he thought the statement by Amnesty International was not acceptable.
“I was surprised like all Kuwaitis by the interference in the affairs of an Islamic country where its people are committed to the values of Islam,” he said in a statement. “I condemn the brazen requests by an organisation that introduces itself as a protector of freedoms and human rights. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs should respond urgently to the so-called Amnesty International to highlight the noble Islamic principles, values and teachings in which the people of Kuwait believe and which reject the propagation of vice and debauchery in the community.” He went on to say that he thought a response from the foreign ministry should be “both clear and strongly worded.“We need to make sure that this organisation or any other would not dare target Kuwait or its pure Islamic beliefs,” he continued. “The ministry’s response will be under the scrutiny of the National Assembly immediately after its release to ascertain the extent of its reaction to the offence perpetrated by the international organisation and which is rejected by all Kuwaitis.” A former MP, Mohammad Al Hayef said that he disagreed with Amnesty’s assertion that it would “reject any proposals to introduce these discriminatory ‘medical tests’ to ‘assess’ the sexual orientation or gender identity of people entering the country.
Such statements cause a backlash against the organisation,” Al Hayef said. “It should have reinforced the slogan of human rights and the defence of the oppressed, not confuse issue and interlace honey with poison so that one of its officials dares to encourage behaviour that is against the human nature and clashes with the teachings of all apostles. Deviant behaviour and attitudes undermine and destroy humanity.” Thawabet Al Umma, an Islamist group, said that Amnesty International “should in the name of humanity encourage people to be straight in their behaviour and attitudes, and not encourage them to engage in deviant acts and destructive acts that undermine communities through lethal physical and psychological that are difficult to treat.” It is illegal to be gay in all of the GCC member countries. These include Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Article 193 of the Penal Code in Kuwait punishes homosexuality between men, over the age of 21, with up to seven years imprisonment. If the conduct involves persons under the age of 21, then imprisonment can be for a maximum of ten years.