Kuwait Police - to protect and to serve?

I'm not entirely sure how a citizen experiences our Police Force. It may be that the words 'to protect and to serve' apply here like they do in some other countries. All I know is my own experience of local law enforcement has not been pleasant.

My first experience of Kuwait police was in high school, when they arrested a friend of mine for not having his civil id on him. My friend protested to the rough treatment and talk he was recieving. So before they locked him in his cell, they beat him over and over again until he had nothing left in him.

The trauma led to my friend leaving school shortly after that, unable to focus in class, and drifting from low salary job to job in Kuwait. He never went to college. He was a student at UAS. I realise that these choices are ultimately left to the individual - but you have to wonder what he could have done if things had been different.

I spent some hours in jail as well for not having my civil id on me. We (the other prisoners and I) were roughly tossed back and forth, spoken to as if we were cattle, or idiots with no understanding, denied even one phone call (I wanted to call my dad to pick up my civil id). I wonder if Citizens have to worry about civil ids and getting to make a phone call?!

My wife overheard a kafeel at al razi hospital, offering policemen a certain amount of money, to take the woman and deposit her in the desert in a dangerous part of town.

A maid who complained to the police about her employer not feeding her, and beating her badly, came to the house and beat the maid severely himself, before returning her to her employer.

My mother called the police, on witnessing two men (employers) beating and shoving an Indian maid into their car though she was crying and screaming. After three calls, they still had not come. My mother stepped in saying 'haram' but the men told her to get lost, saying they were CID (which they clearly weren't) The police never came. They had not even bothered to pretend to be interested on the phone. It was after all a hindi calling about another hindi.

But my personal, ultimate experience of Kuwait Police was last week. A woman was being transported to the airport. This elderly Indian lady had suffered broken legs, broken jaw and was unable to walk without crutches. She was supposed to get into the police jeep. So these policeman - one middle aged man and one young guy- yelled at her, laughing at her, shouting 'yalla, yalla' cursing her saying 'teez umuk' etc because.. because she couldn't get in the jeep fast enough because of her leg. The ferocity of their yelling made her try to hurry but she hit her leg hard against the side of the car. She was crying and in tears as the policemen laughed at her, then continued... 'yalla yalla'.

I was so angry that without thinking I said, perhaps louder than I should have, "why are you saying yalla yalla? She is old enough to be your mother and my mother. For what reason are you hurrying her - because she is Indian?" The younger policeman was so enraged that I answered back that he started shouting at me in that typically guttural,curled lip, arrogant jaw-lined manner that I've become so used to. He used the word hindi so many times I can't even count, but because of our lack of language skills, the talking was futile.

Vijaylakshmi (the Indian maid), explained to me later when we met at the airport before her flight, that the policemen had deliberately hit every single speed bump on the way very hard, banging aunty's leg against the back of the seat of the very cramped jeep. Over and over again, in agonising pain while they laughed and smoked cigars and compared blingy watches.
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What can we do against these 'good guys'? Because of course the entire reason for a police force is so that the good guys can prevent the bad guys from doing bad things. How insane I feel when I realise suddenly that WE are the bad guys and these law enforcement, the good guys, are here to put an end to US. And these good guys terrify me so much that when I meet cops in other countries, like in Canada and the UK, cops who actually want to help, i am terrified.

To protect and to serve? Not here. Not for us. Not even close.

Incident at the airport

The next few blog posts are going to be about things we have seen and heard around Kuwait. It's not going to be good news so if you're not comfortable with how ugly the situation can get then you may not want to read this blog for the next few days.
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When my mother and her friend were getting out of their car in the Kuwait airport parking lot, they saw an Indian maid being slapped left and right by a larger Kuwaiti man. Another man was standing at a distance to make sure no one else was coming, and the first man was slapping the maid who was crying and saying in our language, "I dont want to go please let me go home". The man was forcefully pushing her into the car.

My mother and her friend started asking the men to please not beat her, saying, "haram" etc.. but the men claimed to be CID. The two ladies called the police multiple times, explaining the situation. Perhaps because of what they perceived to be an unimportant issue, the police did not arrive and the men left with the crying woman. As far as we know the maid is now back in the care of the two men that abused her.

When my mom related this story to me, it struck close to home. Hearing cries for help in your own language does something to you in a foreign land. Not being able to do anything is even worse.