Development Blogs.com

Yesterday’s NY Times article provides an interesting perspective on the relationship between democracy, oil revenues, and development on the case of Kuwait.  As the story goes, in Kuwait, a public opinion that democracy has hampered the country’s development is becoming more widespread.  The reason?  Well, it seems like the country is lagging behind its as well oil-rich neighbors who shun democracy in favor of monarchies. For example, Many Kuwaitis also complain about government neglect of public hospitals and schools. Problems with the power grid caused brownouts last summer…Although parts of Kuwait City were rebuilt after the Iraqi invasion of 1990, much of it looks faded and tatty, a striking contrast with the gleaming hyper-modernity of Dubai, Abu Dhabi and...

Authorities Should Repeal Repressive Law, Free Detainees New arrests show that Kuwait has resumed enforcing a repressive dress code that criminalizes “imitating the appearance of the opposite sex,” Human Rights Watch said today. It called on the government to investigate allegations of ill-treatment of people detained and to repeal the offending provision, which violates Kuwait’s human rights obligations....

Arrests Target Transgender People Authorities should immediately release more than a dozen persons jailed under Kuwait’s new dress-code law, Human Rights Watch said today. The law, approved by the National Assembly on December 10, 2007, criminalizes people who “imitate the appearance of the opposite sex.”...

About Being Without: Stories of Stateless in Kuwait (Refugees International, Oct. 2007) [text] Asylum Rights Watch: Summary of responses June – September 2007 (Asylum Aid, Oct. 2007) [text] Ethiopia: Addressing the rights and needs of people displaced by conflict (IDMC, Oct. 2007) [text] A guide to the African Commission on human and peoples’ rights (Amnesty International, Nov. 2007) [text]...