A Kuwaiti man has been arrested for allegedly stripping an Egyptian employee naked and then beating him while subjecting him to a stream of verbal abuse, according to a statement released by Egypt's Manpower Ministry.
A two-minute video went viral on social media on Sunday, apparently showing Egyptian worker Ashraf Abu al-Yamin Gaber Swelam (35) being beaten by his Kuwaiti employer Abduallah AlShamry (40). The footage was allegedly filmed by a 31-year-old Egyptian man, Mohamed Eiwes Mabrouk, who has also been arrested.
While the circumstances of the incident are still unclear, some media reports claim that the victim, who worked in a mobile phone shop in Kuwait City, was being punished by his employer for a mistake at work. The unconfirmed media reports suggest that the Egyptian employee allowed a customer to take a mobile phone in exchange for an older one, which later turned out to be faulty.
However, according to the Kuwaiti Interior Ministry, the case dates back 18 months and is related to a robbery at the mobile phone shop. Kuwaiti authorities are still investigating the incident and gathering statements.
Meanwhile, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry disclosed that the shop owner has been identified and arrested, and his shop closed down by the Kuwaiti authorities.
The ministry said that the Egyptian employee did not file a complaint with the Egyptian consulate in Kuwait, but that Egyptian officials approached the Kuwaiti authorities after the video received attention on the internet.
Kuwaiti employer AbdUallah al-Shamry. (Courtesy of CNN)
The Egyptian man who allegedly filmed the video. (Courtesy of CNN)
Minister of Immigration and Egyptian Expatriates Affairs Nabila Makram Ebied urged both media outlets and social media sites to remove the video. “The video badly hurt the feelings of the Egyptian worker’s family, and his mother was devastated and transferred to hospital after watching it,” said Ebied.
The minister said that she visited the worker’s family after hearing the news of the mother's reaction.
"The worker hid the incident from his family when it happened, but due to some recent financial problems between the person who filmed the video and his Kuwaiti employer, the video was posted,” said Ebeid.
She said the General Prosecution in Kuwait had demanded that the Egyptian worker appoint a lawyer in order to demand proper compensation and take the necessary legal steps.
The spokesperson of the Egyptian Expats Union in Kuwait, Alaa Selim, condemned the incident, saying that they reject any mistreatment of Egyptians in Kuwait, particularly since they contribute to the economy. Speaking to Egyptian state-owned newspaper Al-Ahram, Selim said around 750,000 Egyptians live in Kuwait.
In November 2015, an Egyptian citizen was killed and three others were wounded in a fight in the town of Hawally in Kuwait. During the incident, which involved four Kuwaitis and 15 Egyptians, an Egyptian was knocked down by a car and run over several times, killing him.
