CAIRO: Kuwait constitutional court struck down a law on February 16 Wednesday that the government had used to charge transgender people, stating that the law overstepped Kuwaitis’ right to personal freedom. Activists hailed the decision as a landmark for transgender rights in the Middle East.
The law made it with Article 198, which had criminalized “copying the opposing sex”, which gives the government free rein to stop, arrest and charge people whose appearance did not match the gender mark of their official identification card.
Amnesty International stated this development “a major breakthrough for transgender’s rights in the region”.
According to ‘Lynn Maalouf’ the human rights group’s deputy Middle East director stated that the law was “deeply discriminatory, overly unclear and never have to accepted as a law in the first place”.
Furthermore, she stated that the government of Kuwait should revoke these Article 198 entirely. “They must have to make the arbitrary arrests of transgender people immediately and drop all the cases and convictions brought against them under this transphobic law.”
She then demanded the immediate bail of the ‘Maha al-Mutairi’, a 40 year old transgender woman who was going through jail and fined under the law.
As per her lawyer, ‘Ibtissam al-Enezi‘ stated the Human Rights Watch at the time of her hearing that the court used her social media video as proof to sentence her because she was wearing make-up, speaking about her transgender identity, allegedly making “sexual advances”, and blaming the government.
In June 2020, Ms Mutairi was hailed by authorities after she posted a video of her where she stated that the police officers poorly accused her, and they even raped her when she was in jail during seven months in 2019.
One other Gulf state, Oman, has a law that expressly prohibits the expression of transgender identities.
According to London based rights group the Human Dignity Trust, Saudi Arabia do not have any law regarding gender identity. However, principles of Islamic laws are always used to demotivate transgender and gender diverse people.
As per the Penal codes of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kingdom of Jordan, and Lebanon, a man who “hides: himself as a woman in a bid to enter a women-only space is guilty of an offence.