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Kuwait's Islamist deputies win co-education ban

KUWAIT: Kuwaiti opposition Islamists scored a rare victory on Tuesday when parliament passed a bill that would end co-education in Kuwait in five years.

"This is a blessed session," hardline Islamist Aayedh al-Mutairi told fellow deputies after the bill won 33 votes against 11 abstentions, including those by cabinet ministers.

The ban applies to the conservative Moslem Gulf state's sole university and private schools apart from kindergartens. State schools already apply segregation.

The bill requires the endorsement of the Emir Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah to become law. "If the emir rejects it, it cannot be proposed again in this term," an official said.

The current parliament term ends in August to prepare for October's elections, which will choose a new parliament.

The bill "is illogical, labeled by the (Islamist) political slogan and does not address one social issue," liberal deputy Abdulla al-Naibari said during a heated debate.

The passage of the bill sparked a short wave of clapping from a thinly-occupied public gallery.

"Even if others say that we are backward, we will take pride in returning to Islamic sharia (teachings)," said Islamist deputy Khaled al-Adwa.

The bill is a blow to the liberals' aim of curbing a growing Islamist influence in Kuwait.

Over the past four years Islamists lost a previous attempt at banning co-education, a drive to pass a non-confidence motion against liberal Education Minister Ahmad al-Rubai and a bid to make Islam the sole source of law -- their ultimate goal.

The bill requires concerned institutions to mobilise measures to secure full segregation in a five-year period immediately after the inactement of the measure.

At present only two Kuwait University faculties are formally segregated. But in many other faculties men and women sharing classrooms already sit on different sides.

Islamists argue that co-education has a bad effect on students' ethics and learning capacities and does not conform with Islam's rules.-Reuter