SUBSCRIPTION MONDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2016 SAFAR 14, 1438 AH www.kuwaittimes.net Son embraces Sorrowful Egypt mourns Kuwait Times Fadhel’s ideas France marks ‘The Magician’ infographic: of modernity, first ’versary of star Mahmoud NBA Power development3 Paris massacre7 Abdel40 Aziz Rankings18 Court bars royal candidate, Max 31º reinstates ex-MP Hashem Min 14º High Tide 11:52 & 23:16 Damkhi slams Iran • Ashour blasts sectarianism • Hackers target Ghanem Low Tide 05:33 & 17:42 40 PAGES NO: 17050 150 FILS New Saudi rules, By B Izzak KUWAIT: The appeals court yesterday upheld a decision fees for helpers, by the election authorities to bar ruling family member Sheikh Malek Al-Humoud Al-Sabah from running in the Nov 26 polls. The court overturned a ruling by the lower vehicles, cattle administrative court which last week said in a landmark By Hanan Al-Saadoun verdict that members of the ruling family can contest parliamentary polls. The Kuwaiti constitution does not KUWAIT: The interior ministry’s relations and secu- explicitly bar ruling family member from competing in rity media department announced that Saudi parliamentary elections, but its explanatory note states Arabia has started implementing new measures that they cannot run in order to keep the ruling family concerning the entry of domestic helpers accompa- away from politics. nying Kuwaiti families into the kingdom. The The lower court said last week the explanatory note department highlighted that the new visa fees for does not amount to a ban and allowed Sheikh Malek to helpers would be 2,000 riyals per visit instead of the remain in the race. But the appeals court rejected the earlier fee of 200 riyals. In addition, vehicles with ruling and insisted that ruling family members cannot Kuwaiti license plates can only remain in Saudi run in polls. The issue will be settled by the country’s Arabia for a maximum period of three months. top court, the cassation court, whose rulings are final. If The department noted that the Hamteyyat land that court decides he can run, the interior ministry will border exit has been closed and cattle owners who register him. want to take their herds to graze in Saudi Arabia can The appeals court also rejected the candidacy of only go through the Khafji and Reqee land border Khaled Dehrab, supporting the decision of the election exits. Accordingly, the department urged all citizens authority. It however reinstated former MP Safa Al- to respect the new rules in order to avoid delays at Hashem who was barred by the election authority, but these exits. reinstated by the lower administrative court. The case Separately, the department said the manager of will now go to the court of cassation, but it is unlikely the domestic helpers department Mohammed Al- the court will bar her. The appeals court also reinstated Ajmi announced the cancellation of 42 domestic three other candidates including Khaled Al-Mutairi. It help offices that failed to legalize their statuses as set tomorrow as the date to issue its verdict on the case Continued on Page 13 KUWAIT: People attend an electoral campaign meeting of Islamist former MP candidate Adel Al-Damkhi on of former opposition MP Bader Al-Dahoum. Saturday. — Photo by Yasser Al-Zayyat Continued on Page 13 Myanmar Rohingya PAGE Pak, China open PAGE villages set on fire new trade route US Muslims reeling and scared NEW YORK: On the morning after the viewed her. “Half of America voted one election, Alia Ali had a sickening feeling way and half of America voted the other, Alabbar, Saudi as she headed to her job as a secretary at and you’re like, ‘Which half am I looking a New York City public school, her hijab in at?’” she said. “You become almost like SWF launch $1bn place as usual. Ali is a Muslim who lives strangers to the people you’ve worked and works in one of the most diverse with. Is this person racist? Do they like e-commerce site places in the US, and yet the ascension of me? Do they not like me? Because that’s Donald Trump to the White House left her what this election has done.” IDRIS KHUBBAZ, Iraq: In this handout image provided by Human Rights Watch, DUBAI: Dubai business magnate Mohamed wondering how other Americans really Continued on Page 13 destroyed houses are seen in this Iraqi village. — AP Alabbar announced yesterday the launch of a $1- billion regional e-commerce site in a joint venture with the Saudi sovereign wealth fund and other Iraqi Kurds destroy Gulf investors. Noon.com is to go online in January with a 50-percent investment from the kingdom’s Arab villages: HRW Public Investment Fund and the rest from around 60 investors led by Alabbar, who heads the emi- rate’s real estate giant Emaar. He told a press con- Forces recapture Nimrud ference that distribution centers are being set up in the Saudi cities of Riyadh and Jeddah, along ERBIL, Iraq: Iraqi Kurdish fighters battling Arabs in Baghdad, especially under with a giant warehouse the size of 60 football sta- Islamic State in northern Iraq unlawfully Saddam Hussein. Reuters found last month diums in Dubai. destroyed Arab homes in scores of towns that Kurds are using the battle against “We expect to become a world player but will and villages in what may amount to a war Islamic State to settle old disputes and grab concentrate firstly on Saudi Arabia and the United crime, US-based rights group Human land in ethnically mixed territory separating Arab Emirates,” said the president of Emaar, the Rights Watch said yesterday. The Kurdish the Kurdish region in the north from the company which built the world’s tallest building, peshmerga and Iraqi armed forces have majority Arab south. the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. With an initial inventory of faced a common enemy in Islamic State Human Rights Watch said in its report 20 million products, the online retailer aims to since the militants took over large parts of that violations between Sept 2014 and May expand to Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous Iraq in 2014. Iraqi troops and Kurdish fight- 2016 in 21 towns and villages within disput- state, at the end of next year or early in 2018. It is ers make up the 100,000-strong, US-backed ed areas of Kirkuk and Nineveh provinces also looking at Kuwait and Oman. Alabbar, quoted alliance currently battling to retake Mosul. had followed “a pattern of apparently NEW YORK: Enas Almadhwahi, an immigration outreach organizer for the Arab by Bloomberg, said Noon would be traded on stock But animosity persists, going back to unlawful demolitions”. American Association of New York, stands along Fifth Avenue in the Bay Ridge markets after five to seven years. — AFP decades of mistreatment of Kurds by ruling Continued on Page 13 neighborhood of Brooklyn on Nov 11, 2016. — AP Britain ‘sharia courts’ under scrutiny LONDON: For more than 30 years, sharia courts The government and MPs on parliament’s parliamentary inquiry, sharia councils are useful enforcing Islamic law have been operating qui- home affairs committee both opened inquiries for Muslims but should be framed by a “strong etly across Britain. But two official inquiries have this year into whether the councils are actually code of conduct”. She also urged the govern- put them in the spotlight amid accusations that compatible with British law. They are looking ment to make civil marriage obligatory for cou- they discriminate against women. Very little is into the function and possible discriminatory ples marrying under Islamic law, to ensure known about them, even their number, which practices of the courts. The first sharia court women are legally protected, saying that 40 per- one study by the University of Reading puts at appeared in London in 1982 under the govern- cent of women who contact her organization 30, while the British think tank Civitas estimates ment of Margaret Thatcher, who rolled back only had religious marriages. there are 85. Sharia courts or councils, as they state intervention in many areas, including But for other Muslim feminists, the courts prefer to be called, mainly pronounce on Islamic mediation in family conflicts, which was delegat- constitute a “parallel legal system” and should divorces, which today constitute 90 percent of ed to faith groups. be banned altogether. An open letter to this the cases they handle. But religious courts have existed for hun- effect was signed by more than 200 national They range from groups of Muslim scholars dreds of years in Britain, whether in the Catholic and international women’s organizations, while attached to a mosque, to informal organizations Church or in the Jewish community - the Beth legislation which would limit the scope of or even a single imam. But while they are aimed Din - notes Amin Al-Astewani, lecturer in law at sharia councils has been put forward by a mem- at helping resolve family and sometimes com- Lancaster University. As with sharia councils, the ber of the House of Lords. “They are discrimina- mercial conflicts within the Muslim community, decisions of those bodies are not legally bind- tory, they are abusive, they endorse and legit- some stand accused of undermining women’s ing, but they represent a strong moral and social imize violence,” in particular marital rape, KISH, Iran: Iranian men walk past a giant sculpture displayed on the beach in rights. Campaigners cite instances where courts constraint for those who use them, he wrote in a Maryam Namazie, spokeswoman for the One this southern resort island on Nov 1, 2016. Iranian investors are pouring money have refused to grant religious divorces to submission to the parliamentary inquiry.