KUWAIT CITY: Kuwaiti police arrested two Filipinos for allegedly convincing housemaids to run away from their employers’ homes as the Philippines’ ambassador faced questions for comments about his embassy’s work in aiding abused workers, authorities said Sunday.
The arrests, reported by the state-run KUNA news agency, come as relations are tense between Kuwait and the Philippines, which sends many domestic laborers to the Gulf Arab emirate.
Already, the government of President Rodrigo Duterte has banned workers from heading to Kuwait over abuse cases, culminating in a February incident that saw a Filipino’s body discovered in a freezer at a Kuwait City apartment abandoned for more than a year.
KUNA said Sunday the two Filipinos acknowledged convincing the maids to leave. It wasn’t clear what law the two men were accused of breaking, though KUNA said the two “confessed to the crime in addition to other similar offenses that had been committed in various regions of the country.”
The arrests came after Kuwait summoned the Philippines ambassador over comments he made that were reported in local press about the embassy’s effort to rescue domestic workers who are abused by their employers. Ambassador Renato Villa was quoted as saying his embassy moves in to help the abused if Kuwaiti authorities fail to respond within 24 hours.
Villa’s office said he was unavailable for comment Sunday.
Duterte in January complained that cases of abuse reported by Filipino domestic workers “always” seem to be coming from Kuwait.
There have been prominent cases of abuse in the past, including an incident in December 2014 where a Kuwaiti’s pet lions fatally mauled a Filipino maid.
The Philippines banned workers entirely from Kuwait after the discovery of Joanna Demafelis’ body in a freeze in February. In late March, Lebanese officials said 40-year-old Lebanese national Nader Essam Assaf confessed to killing the woman along with his Syrian wife, who remains at large. Authorities say Assaf faces a possible death sentence.
More than 260,000 Filipinos work in Kuwait, many of them as housemaids. Kuwait and the Philippines have since been negotiating for new rules governing Filipino workers there.
Philippine officials have demanded that housemaids be allowed to hold their passports and cellphones, which is normal for skilled workers like teachers and office workers. But many Kuwaiti employers seize their phones and passports.
Kuwait arrests 2 Filipinos accused of helping runaway maids
Kuwait arrests 2 Filipinos accused of helping runaway maids
- Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has banned workers from heading to Kuwait over abuse cases
- The two countries have since been negotiating for new rules governing Filipino workers there
Tehran residents keep up semblance of normality amid destruction
- Chaotic scenes followed of panicked passers-by, parents scrambling to retrieve their children from school, queues at bakeries and endless traffic jams
- A week on, the noise and energy have ebbed, giving way to a rare, disquieting calm in a capital usually thronging with 10 million people
TEHRAN: For a moment Tehran resembled a city at peace, with birdsong, joggers and tranquil views of the snow-capped Alborz mountains in the distance. Then the sound of another explosion ripped through the air.
A week ago, opening strikes by the US and Israel killed Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, upended residents’ lives and transformed the city streets into a battleground.
In Tehran’s west, a block that belonged to the security forces had been blasted apart, and the entire surrounding area was choked with rubble.
Bizarrely, a green gate and fence enclosing the site stood untouched.
None were surprised by the war, and few had believed the nuclear talks then taking place between Iran and the US would avert it.
The broad-daylight strike at the country’s power center was nevertheless a shock.
Chaotic scenes followed of panicked passers-by, parents scrambling to retrieve their children from school, queues at bakeries and endless traffic jams.
A week on, the noise and energy have ebbed, giving way to a rare, disquieting calm in a capital usually thronging with 10 million people.
The city is at times granted breaks of a few peaceful hours before another string of explosions shatters the air.
- Mushroom clouds -
Another block, this one in the city center, had also been gutted.
Men stood guard, some of them heavily armed despite their apparent youth.
The blast was powerful enough to sow chaos through a nearby primary school, breaking windows and carpeting the playground with rocks and rubble.
Dust coated a row of motorbikes parked nearby.
In another neighborhood, only the steel framework of a bombed-out building had survived, still supporting a massive antenna on the roof.
Local people busied themselves with clearing away the rubble and recovering a few possessions.
They loaded salvageable sofas and home appliances onto decrepit blue pickup trucks in the unmistakable 1960s design of local brand Zamyad.
On the horizon, yet another black mushroom cloud reached skywards.
- ‘Ramadan War’ -
In the first days of the war, Tehran could seem like a ghost town.
But pedestrians were again venturing outdoors: a father walking with his daughter on a scooter, children playing with a ball, or locals sunning themselves in a park.
Runners and cyclists resumed their exercise. More shops were open again.
But the semblance of normality is skin-deep.
Along major roads, armed men in plain clothes and others in military fatigues and body armor inspected random cars at checkpoints.
The blockades made for traffic jams on the avenues, where other traffic was mostly restricted to scooters and delivery riders.
Forbidding armored vehicles appeared on high alert, one of them flying the banner of the Islamic republic.
At prayer time, armed Revolutionary Guards checked the faithful as they filed into a mosque.
One week after his death, posters and placards bearing Khamenei’s image were everywhere on the streets.
Some walls bore street art-style portraits in his honor that appeared in recent days.
In a neighborhood grocery shop, one employee was anxiously following the latest in what state TV had dubbed the “Ramadan War” across the Middle East.
