Sunday, July 1, 2007

AL RAI TV?? Violators of Human Rights??

Today there was a topic on "Khalf Al Abwab" on RAI TV, it was about the U.S State Department's report on Human trafficking, putting Kuwait in the "tier 3" level.

The panel was M.P Duaij Al Shimmary and Lawyer Nawaf Sari Al Mutairi debating against the U.S Department's report. Mark Rothenshield from the U.S Embassy was brought in to speak as a representative of the U.S and had a lot of explaining to do, on his own without any Kuwaiti counterpart that would rebuttle Duaij and Nawaf's views.

The vice president of the our organization Mr. Faisal Al-Masoud was contacted by AlRAI to give our view as an official human rights NGO towards the human trafficking report from the state department. He was contacted at 10:35 and was told he will be on air in 5 minutes, he was surprised by the AlRAI staff asking him exactly what he will be discussing, when he mentioned that he will give detailed evidence of the horrible situation that the labour expats are dealing with in our country, they asked him to hold the line and kept disconnecting him. Everytime he called back they just left him on the line untill it was too late for his turn and the program was over.

They obviously do not want to hear the other side, instead they brought a member of the parliament Duaij AL Shimmari who kept turning the subject around and start pointing fingers at Israel, when the subject was Kuwait. The other person was Nawaf Sarri, a lawyer who has plans to run for the next elections.

This was a BIAS panel, Mark was attacked and was not allowed outside calls for support. What a shame!! This is not proper media and is completely undemocratic. Kuwait is the biggest allie of The United States of America and Mark, I believe was doing his duty with his reports on human rights, because afterall, America would want their biggest allies to have better respect on human lives. We never complained when they got involved with woman's rights, with THE FREEDOM OF KUWAIT and especially with the ousting Saddam Hussain, why is it such a problem now that we are shown at our worst behavior?!?!?!?


ANYBODY THAT HIDES THE TRUTH OF THE VIOLATIONS IS THE BIGGEST VIOLATOR TOWARDS OUR COUNTRY AND OUR RELIGION.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

VERY BAD ATTITUDE !!! BUT I HOPE THEY WILL CORRECT THIS DURING THE SECOND PART OF THE PROGRAM MAY BE NEXT WEEK .WE HAVE TO FACE THE FACTS AND WE HAVE TO BE GRATEFUL TO THOSE WHO EXPOSE OUR SOCIAL WRONG-DOINGS . OUR REPUTATION IS SHMEFUL BECAUSE WE ALWAYS DENY OUR MISTAKES ,

kwtia said...

The response to the idea that we have human trafficking was not only to deny it, but to say this:
"Kuwait ought to be commended, appreciated and even placed on an honors list,"
Which scares me a little.

Keep fighting for human rights and dignity. There are people listening.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-06/28/content_6300496.htm

dishevelled said...

Although I agree that there are human right violations in Kuwait, and believe they should be addressed asap, I don't believe it's the job of the US. They're doing exactly what we're doing, only on a bigger scale and not within their country. I suggest they fix their problems ba3dain play world police

Eman said...

OMG I can't believe there are actual other Kuwaitis out there who give a shit. God bless you all.

Eman said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Eman said...

You know, I'm writing a book about the life of a maid. This is a problem we have in the ME though not just in Kuwait. Its sad how thrilled I am to see that there are people in Kuwait who actually care.

Please don't think you're alone and I commend your efforts. It's people like you who give me hope for the evolution of our society.

sws said...

Harmonie,

A filipino house maid wrote a fantastic book about her experiences in Kuwait in her native language and my organization is about to publish it in english, id love to know more about your book and please let me know if you need any help with publishing. I am just as glad to see that there are people who share the same feelings as I do. Sani and zoro and kwtia, thanks for your responses.

Anonymous said...

Maids in the Gulf and the Mideast are widely molested, assaulted and sometimes, even murdered in cold blood.I have it on reasonably good authority there are three trouble spots for domestics working in the Gulf : Kuwait, Jeddah and Abu Dhabi. My eyes well up whenever I see a maid in Kuwait. It's almost as if 70% working here are slaves labouring for their masters with little if any, rest, good food or decent wages. If someone were to make a serious docu-film on " Maid in Kuwait", I am sure it would be a winning entry at the Cannes. That's not to say it is okay to trivialize the whole maids issue. Documentary or not, it is doing very little to improve the overall conditions of your average maid in Kuwait.