Panel optimistic about citizenship for 180 families
Suad Hamada
Staff Reporter
About 180 families are waiting for a Royal gesture granting them citizenship.
The head of the National Committee of People Deprived of Citizenship, Sonia Tahar told the Tribune yesterday, “We hope for cooperation to enable us to help the families who don’t have another country except Bahrain to call their home.
“We have been coordinating with lawmakers and government officials. I am optimistic that something positive would be done soon as information and documents about these cases have been referred to the Royal Court.”
Panel optimistic about citizenship for 180 families
Suad Hamada
Staff Reporter
About 180 families are waiting for a Royal gesture granting them citizenship.
The head of the National Committee of People Deprived of Citizenship, Sonia Tahar told the Tribune yesterday, “We hope for cooperation to enable us to help the families who don’t have another country except Bahrain to call their home.
“We have been coordinating with lawmakers and government officials. I am optimistic that something positive would be done soon as information and documents about these cases have been referred to the Royal Court.”
According to Tahar, the General Directorate of Nationality, Passports and Residence Directorate has told the committee that all the cases had fulfilled the naturalisation criteria and they should wait for the Royal Court’s approval.
She said the committee had sought an audience with His Majesty the King, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, to highlight the sufferings of the families who have been living as non-Bahrainis in their own country.
The committee has been mobilising public opinion to exert pressure on the authorities concerned to help all such families “whose main dilemma is that they do not have any official document to show which countries they are from,” Tahar said. “We have 180 cases, but I’m sure there are many more awaiting miracles to happen.” Set up in May last year by a group of human rights activists, the committee has no links with any political or legal society. Its main objectives are to help those deprived of their citizenship rights protected by the naturalisation law of 1963 and follow up their cases with the government.
“Without any identity, these families cannot leave Bahrain for holidays or treatment or to perform religious obligations. They neither have any political rights to contest or vote in elections nor to own homes or apply for housing loans,” Tahar said.
Another problem, Tahar said, was that young males from these families are unable to get married as other families reject their marriage proposals to avoid an uncertain future for their daughters.
Worse, the government’s decision to replace their CPRs with papers which are not accepted even at health centres, has added to their woes, she said.
Members of some families have not been issued passports because of their previous criminal records. They have also lost or need necessary documents and many do not know how to seek government help in this regard. “About 2,000 individuals are waiting for their situation to be corrected,” she said.
Tahar said the committee had approached the Supreme Council for Women for help but it promised to follow up the cases of only women as the council is focusing on the empowerment of women.
Article from: Bahrain Tribune Newspaper- www.BahrainTribune.com