April 29, 2008	Tuesday	Rabi-us-Sani 22, 1429

KUWAIT CITY: An Islamist candidate running in next month’s elections in Kuwait has called for the expulsion of tens of thousands of Bangladeshi workers, blaming them for a crime wave.

“Bangladeshi workers represent a serious danger to the country’s security and its noble values,” Mohammad Hayef al-Mutairi said in a statement. “The interior minister should issue an immediate and brave decision to expel those (Bangladeshi) workers because they constitute a risk to the country,” said the hardline Islamist candidate.

Mr Mutairi charged that Bangladeshi workers were behind a wave of crimes that has hit the emirate in recent years, including murders, abductions and prostitution. He claimed that Bangladeshi workers had formed organised crime rings to carry out prostitution, abduction of housemaids, forgeries, robberies and other crimes.

Some 200,000 Bangladeshis work in Kuwait, mostly as cleaners and in low-paid jobs. Thousands of them have gone on strike complaining of non-payment of salaries and inhuman working conditions. About 2.345 million foreigners live and work in the Gulf state, whose native population is just over one million.—AFP