Parliament rejects allowing police to enter homes to check for guns

The Kuwaiti State Council (the parliament) refused yesterday a draft law presented by the government to give additional rights to the security authorities in inspection campaigns for unlicensed weapons.

Some deputies believe entering houses for weapons inspections, contradicts the constitution, which upholds the sacredness of citizen's homes.

The government presented the draft law to enable to the police to deal with thousands of weapons that were left by the Iraqi forces and obtained by Kuwaiti citizens without licenses and without being licensed by the government.

The committee for interior affairs and defense in the parliament agreed to presenting the draft law during the council's session, at where it was rejected by 36 deputies while approved by 27 deputies.

The council's chairman, Ahmed El-Sadeoun who opposed the draft law said, "If we agreed on the miserable draft and inspections were made in any houses and nothing was found by the police and the house owner objected, he would be charged with resisting the authorities."