DUBAI, Jan 18: The Human Rights Watch urged the Kuwaiti authorities on Friday to release from prison 14 men jailed in recent months for having dressed as women in public.

Kuwait “should immediately release more than a dozen persons jailed under Kuwait’s new dress-code law” since mid-December, the New York-based rights HRW said in a statement received by AFP.

“Kuwaiti authorities should immediately drop all charges against those arrested, and investigate charges of ill-treatment in detention,” it said.

According to HRW, the Kuwaiti National Assembly approved in December a law which criminalises people who “imitate the appearance of the opposite sex”. Since then 14 people have been arrested. The law targets namely “transgender people... (and) aims at further restricting their rights and completely eliminating their public presence,” it said.—AFP