COURT WEIGHS REMOVING FEMALE MPS FOR NOT WEARING

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 KUWAIT 001014

SIPDIS

NEA/ARP

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PREL KWMN PINR PHUM KU
SUBJECT: COURT WEIGHS REMOVING FEMALE MPS FOR NOT WEARING
HIJAB; MPS FIGHT LAW

REF: A. 2005 KUWAIT 2064

B. KUWAIT 504

C. KUWAIT 244

1.(U) Summary. On October 28, Kuwait's constitutional court
is expected to rule on whether recently elected female MPs
Rola Dashti and Aseel Awadhi are violating the Shari'a
requirement of Kuwait's electoral law by going uncovered and,
as a consequence, should lose their assembly seats. The
ruling comes in the wake of an October 11 move by Dashti to
submit an amendment to Kuwait's electoral law scrapping the
hijab (head cover) requirement. While the court is widely
expected to rule that Dashti and Awadhi have not violated the
law -- thus vacating the challenge to their seats --
conservative MPs are likely to vote down Dashti's attempt to
remove the Shari'a requirement from the law. End summary.

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The Shari'a requirement
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2.(U) The requirement was introduced when parliament passed a
law granting women full political rights in May 2005. The
parliament included in the law a vague precondition that
female voters and candidates must "abide by Shari'a" (Ref A).
The precondition was proposed by Shi'a Islamist MP Hussein
Al-Qallaf and embraced by the GOK as a means of mollifying
Islamists.

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The court case: Dashti and Awadhi on trial
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3.(U) In May 2009, Kuwaiti voters elected the first four
women to parliament: two women who wear the hijab and two
women -- Dashti and Awadhi -- who do not (Ref B). Kuwaiti
citizen Hamad Al-Nashi, who belongs to Dashti and Awadhi's
third electoral district, filed a case with the
constitutional court to have Dashti and Awadhi's seats
revoked and given to the runner-up candidates on the basis
that they had violated the Shari'a requirement. The court
will issue its decision on October 28: many Kuwaitis see the
case as frivolous and most expect the court to rule that the
women are not in violation and do not have to surrender their
seats. Former parliamentary candidate Thikra Al-Rashidi (PhD
in Constitutional Law from Cairo University, previously a
lawyer in the Kuwaiti Supreme Court) -- who wears the hijab
-- told Poloff on October 13 that she expects the court to
rule in favor of Dashti and Awadhi because the Shari'a
requirement is vague and open to interpretation. Long-time
liberal talk show host Yousef Al-Jassem was even more
optimistic, telling Poloff on October 13 that he expects a
similar ruling from the constitutional court and that such a
verdict, on the heels of the poor showing of the Kuwaiti
Muslim Brotherhood (ICM) in the May elections, would serve as
further evidence of Islamist decline in Kuwait.

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Dashti's attempt to remove the Shari'a requirement
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4.(U) On October 8, in response to an inquiry from Islamist
MP Mohammad Hayef, who hails from the conservative Al-Mutairi
tribe, Kuwait's Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs issued
a fatwa stating that Islamic law obligates Muslim women to
wear the hijab head cover. Although the fatwa was general in
nature and did not specifically refer to Kuwait's 2005
election law, it spurred Islamist lawmakers to call on
Dashti, Awadhi, and Education Minister Moudhi Al-Hmoud to
comply. On October 11, in response to these calls and her
constitutional court case, Dashti submitted an amendment to
Kuwait's electoral law to scrap the Shari'a requirement.
Kuwait's National Assembly will debate the amendment after it
reconvenes on October 27. Dashti argued that including
Shari'a regulations in the electoral law is a breach of the
constitution: "The regulations clearly violate articles in
the constitution which call for gender equality."

5.(SBU) The question of whether female parliamentarians
should be allowed to publicly show their hair brings together
two of Kuwait's most divisive issues: the role of women in
politics and the role of Shari'a in Kuwaiti law. On these
issues, Kuwaitis tend to fall into two camps: Islamist and
non-Islamist. Former Chairman of the National Union of
Kuwaiti Students, 23 year-old Islamist Aws Al-Shaheen told
Poloff on October 15 that he believes the National Assembly
will retain the Shari'a requirement because a majority of
Kuwaitis still believe the hijab is "a means of protecting
women."

KUWAIT 00001014 002 OF 002



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Comment
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6.(SBU) Because the Shari'a requirement is so vague, the
constitutional court is widely expected to rule that Dashti
and Awadhi are not in violation of the Shari'a requirement
and do not have to surrender their seats. Notwithstanding
this possibility, the Islamist camp in Kuwait retains strong
support -- especially among the conservative, traditional
tribes which have become increasingly influential in recent
years (Ref C). This influence renders it unlikely that
parliament will agree to support Dashti's amendment to scrap
the reference to Shari'a altogether.

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visit Kuwait's Classified Website at:

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