The above is my favorite quote from John Haye’s column in the Kuwait Times today. Check it out [Here]

I have a friend visiting Kuwait for a few days and last night around midnight I took him to my favorite touristic hotspot in Kuwait, the water towers in Adailiya. I love that place and in the middle of the night when it’s vacant it’s a very chilled and beautiful place.

The Adailiya water towers got cleaned up and painted around a year ago so they look really pretty during the day and night. They’re located inside a park that’s open 24/7 which means you can pass by them at anytime. You can also walk up extremely close to them since the fence surrounding the towers is very very close. I also think you can get a lot more nicer shots (selfies) at the water towers when compared to the Kuwait Towers since the water towers are not as tall and since there are a few of them all huddled very closely, they easily show in all your shots.

So if you ever have visitors and are looking for a cool place to take them to, I would highly recommend the Adailiya water towers any time after midnight. Here is their location on [Google Maps]

With the last update to Google Maps on the iPhone they added a new feature for traffic conditions. I originally thought these were based on estimates or general traffic conditions in that area but I now believe the traffic conditions on Google Maps is actually live.

I was on the Fahaheel Expressway heading south earlier today using Google Maps for navigation and there was traffic just before the 6th Ring Road bridge. Turns out there had been an accident and debris was spread out all over the highway causing congestion. To my surprise the traffic was showing on Google Maps. No idea how they’re getting the traffic data but I’m going to be using Google Maps a lot more now when trying to figure out which road has less traffic.

So I got a parking sticker yesterday for parking illegally, let’s talk about this from a legal perspective and a legal perspective only:

1) The constitution says no crime or punishment only by law. Can you please show me where in the law it says the punishment for parking in a no parking zone is to stick a sticker on the violating car?

2) Punishments are to be carried out by police officers. Mall and campus security are not police officers.

3) Do you know that it’s illegal to stick stickers on cars? Even your own car.

I take full legal responsibility for my actions and call for the law to be executed upon me. I know what I did was wrong and a no parking ticket would have been worse than a sticker, it would have cost me more anyways. But I just get bothered when someone does something illegal in the name of the law, don’t do something illegal to let me know that I was illegal! Two wrongs don’t make a right.

Post by Fajer Ahmed – Legal Counsel
Have a Kuwait law related question? Email me at fajer.ar@gmail.com

The legal opinions expressed in this post are those of the author Fajer. Opinions expressed by Mark or any other writer on 248am.com are those of the individual’s and in no way reflect Fajer’s opinion.

The Kuwait Writing Club in collaboration with the Cultural Club at GUST will be hosting a literary night next Thursday. Members of the Riyadh Writing Club, Shurooq Amin, Sons of Yusuf and Nada Faris will also be attending as guest performers.

Date: Thursday, April 18, 2013
Time: 6PM to 8PM
Location: Gulf University for Science and Technology, Hall W6-200

For more information visit the event Facebook page [Here]

Yesterday I posted the picture above on my Instagram account of a new tshirt I had ordered online. It took me a month to get the tshirt because it was on backorder and so when a friend of mine pointed out that a local fashion store was selling a locally printed version (i.e. imitation) I got upset for two reasons:

1) If its a good creative idea you support the designer who came up with the idea and you don’t get a local printshop to reprint the design for you

2) The store that was selling the fake tshirts (I won’t mention the brand and any mention of the brand in the comments will be deleted) is actually a very well respected brand and one that I actually liked

So I visited their Instagram account and found the tshirt listed for sale there and in the comments I read the following:

The tshirt was by a local designer and not the official one in NYC so I left the following comment:

To my surprise instead of them apologizing for selling imitation goods they responded with the following comment:

I stayed diplomatic and responded highlighting the fact that they themselves said it was by a local designer and not that they had permission from the official brand to reprint it in Kuwait. I also tagged my friend Fajer the lawyer in the comments so that she was aware of the situation as well. A few moments later they deleted all my comments and blocked me from their account.

I decided to contact the original designer just to make sure I hadn’t made a mistake and turns out I hadn’t. According to the designer who created the orignal tshirt she never gave anybody permission to sell or reprint her tshirts. In fact the local store was sent the following email to cease sale of the tshirts:

VIOLATION OF TRADEMARK – Remove Immediately
We have been notified that you are in violation of our trademark ‘Ain’t Laurent Without Yves’. Please immediately cease sale of all materials with our trademark logo on it; Should you continue to sell these items we will pursue severe legal damages for profits lost.

We never gave you, or any other vendor permission to sell our product with our slogan on it. Your claims on twitter are false and are damaging our brand.

The reason I am pointing this situation out is to discuss how criticism is handled in the region. Even when I was right I got attacked and a lot of other people do too. We should be able to have freedom of speech and criticism actually helps companies (and people) to know how they can improve. People in the region need to calm down and start accepting criticism.

If you’re interested in the tshirt above you can purchase it directly from the original designer at whataboutyves.com

Sami Alramyan, a photographer based in Kuwait was recently featured on the photography blog EyeEm. Sami does a lot of black and white street photography and recently represented Kuwait for the second year running in “The 24 Hour Project“.

You can check out his photos [Here]
You can check out the feature on him [Here]

Check out the interview above of local musician Zahed Sultan by O2 Academy TV in London. [YouTube]

Did anyone feel the earthquake a few moments ago? (around 3pm)

Update: Confirmed, an earthquake hit Southern Iran awhile ago with a magnitude of 6.2 [Source]

THE QUESTION
Hey Fajer, I work for a private company in Kuwait and the company has my passport (and other employees) and refuses to keep it with us because they’re afraid we might leave the country. Do they have a right to keep our passports? I was told they don’t but I’m afraid if I make a big issue out of this then I might get fired.

THE RESPONSE
So this question/answer is only for private company employees

Do employers have the right to keep an employees passport?

No, No and NOOOOO!

This is a very common question, at work and now from my readers on the blog.

Why is it illegal?

The Ministry resolution number 143/A/2010 says in (Article 1) “It is prohibited for private sector employers and oil sector employers to hold traveling documents of their employees”

Then (Article 2) mentions a punishment from the labor law for employers in the private sector who do not follow (Article 1). The punishment mentioned in (Article 141) from the labor law is as follows:

“In the event where the violator does not remedy the violation within the specified period, he shall be subject to a fine of not less than KD100 and not more than KD200 for each of the workers who are involved in the violation. In the event of recurrence within three years from the date of the final judgment, the punishment shall be doubled.” This means that your employer will get fined KD100-200 for keeping your passport.

Can you get fired?

No, No and NOOOOO!

You can not get fired except for reasons stated in the law which I won’t get into now but basically non of them is for telling your boss to be legal.

I want everyone to know the following for any labor law violations by your employers in the future:

- There is a hotline you can call (no one picked up when I called) 128

- There is a site where you can file a complaint (no one replied to me yet) http://www.mosal.gov.kw/

- There is also an NGO organized by Bibi Nasser called Social Work Society of Kuwait located in mishref www.q8sws.com Tel: 25375031 they might be able to help you with issues, even though most of their work is for domestic and construction workers

- According to the labor law, if you have a complaint against your employer, the Minstry of Labor and Social affairs will look into it before it gets to court and will try to resolve it

- If it does go to court, the court has exempted laborers from any court fees

- I sat with officials 2 weeks ago from the Minstry of Labor and Social Affairs for a research paper by John Hopkins about domestic workers in Kuwait and their rights. The officials I met with told me that an employee who’s passport is held by their employer can come in if he or she really needs to travel and get a paper from them that will allow the employee to travel

Fajer Ahmed – Legal Counsel
Have a Kuwait law related question? Email me at fajer.ar@gmail.com

The legal opinions expressed in this post are those of the author Fajer. Opinions expressed by Mark or any other writer on 248am.com are those of the individual’s and in no way reflect Fajer’s opinion.