criminal-law religion religious-law
Does nationality affect punishments under the Kuwait system of justice?
<p>I saw another American steal some expensive items in Kuwait. He was dragged away by the hisbah and some Kuwaiti national guard.</p>

<p>I can understand some Arabic from being in Iraq and I'm pretty sure I heard someone say he was going to lose a hand for stealing. Does it matter if you are American in Kuwait when it comes to Sharia punishment?</p>

<p>In <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_system_of_Kuwait" rel="nofollow">Kuwait, Shari`a</a> law only applies to family law for Muslim residents. However, if there were a hand-chopping penalty for theft, it would derive from <a href="http://www.islamweb.net/en/article/136791/the-ruling-of-theft-in-islam" rel="nofollow">Shari`ah</a>. Article 31 of the constitution says "No person shall be subjected to torture or to ignominious treatment", which at least suggests that hand-chopping is not allowed. <a href="https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Comparative_law_and_justice/Kuwait#Punishment" rel="nofollow">This</a> also suggests that corporal punishment is not allowed outside the home, and <a href="http://248am.com/fajer/kuwait/kuwait-law-shoplifting/" rel="nofollow">this</a> suggests that "Article 219 of the criminal states the punishment as being up to 2 years of jail time or/and a fee of up to 2000 Rupees". Even resident Muslims would not be subject to legal hand-chopping. In Kuwait.</p>

<p>In general, there are situations where your nationality actually affects whether something is a crime or not or how severe. For example, treason (usually only citizens can commit treason, foreigners can't), illegally entering a country (usually only foreigners can, not citizens). In Germany, insulting a foreign head of state is illegal - but only for Germans. </p>

<p>And there will be other cases, where the laws of a country are so strict that lawfully convicting a foreigner might lead to trouble with the other country, and avoiding that trouble might be more important than upholding the law and getting a conviction, so a foreigner might be removed from the country instead of being thrown into jail for example. </p>
