79. On 16 May 2016, the Supreme Court upheld a one-year jail sentence against Abdulhakim Al-Fadhli and five others for demonstrating in 2014. The six men were convicted of illegal assembly, defying orders and assaulting police, according to the court ruling which also states they will be deported from the Gulf state after serving the jail term. 80. But the Government’s tactics also appear to have changed, with more informal mechanisms of control being pursued. Bedoon activists report a concerted attempt to ensure political loyalty through coercive administration. For example, family members of Bedoon activists have found the renewal of essential national identity cards blocked or postponed unless a declaration to cease political activity has been signed. “If you sign, then the documentation is renewed for a full year. If you don’t, then you’re only given a three-month card which you then have to keep going back to renew,” said one Bedoon activist. 81. A further threat now hangs over Kuwaiti nationals who had hitherto been secure in their citizenship rights. Kuwait’s Nationality Law gives the Ministry of Interior wide powers to revoke the Kuwaiti citizenship of individuals, including on grounds that they are deemed to have “disseminated opinions which may tend to seriously undermine the economic or social structure of the state” because they are a “member of a political association of a foreign state.” 82. Moves made against dozens of Kuwaitis in 2014 has had the desired effect. Individual activists have fallen silent, unwilling to risk the citizenship rights of their family members. 83. Amidst these worrying trends, there has also been a return to opposition engagement with the electoral process after a four-year boycott. In an election on 26 November 2016, half of the discredited Parliament’s incumbents were replaced by candidates promising to oppose welfare cuts. 84. But the terms of political debate, which had been on the verge of a new opening after 2011, have been firmly narrowed on all sides – not least through the closure of independent media like Al-Yawm. Meanwhile the Bedoon issue remains off the table, the Courts remain full and the Emir himself, as the Al-Drees trial indicates, lies beyond even the mildest of public reproach. 15