Kuwaiti citizenship could be granted to non-Muslims if two proposals which are approved by the parliamentary legal and legislative committee gets further support by the parliament and the government.
As per the current law in force, under Item 5 of Article 4, to attain citizenship, there should be approval from the Ministry of Interior for a person who is a Muslim by birth, or a person who has converted to Islam under the prescribed rules and procedures. In case of conversation, there should be at least five years before naturalization is granted. Other requirements need to be fulfilled, such as:-
- The person should be residing in Kuwait for not less than 20 years consecutively, or at least a span of 15 years in consecutiveness if he is an Arab living in an Arab country.
- The person should have a lawful source of income, he should be a person of good character and should not have been convicted for any crime.
- The person should know the Arabic language and should have the required qualifications to render service in Kuwait.
It was for the longest time opposed by the parliamentary committee to drop the requirement of religion as a, but it was this time that they endorsed the same after their three members resigned.
It is now for the first time that a committee of Kuwait's National Assembly approved the proposal of allowing Non-Muslims to obtain citizenship. As per the current law with regarding citizenship in Kuwait, only Muslims can become citizens of Kuwait.
For this amendment to become the law, there needs to be approval from the National Assembly Parliament and also from the government. However, with the number of conservative members of parliament, meant it was quite unlikely to be approved.
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