After pressures from spiritual leaders Ogassapian retracts from supporting women's right to nationality

My Nationality is A Right For Me and My Family Campaign met on February 2 with the newly appointed minister for women affairs, Jean Ogassapian, and handed him a draft of the amended the Lebanese Nationality Law that guarantees full equality between men and women in granting nationality to family members. While reiterating his personal conviction of the right of women in this issue, Ogassapian revealed that since he publicly declared his support to the above right, he received nonstop calls from spiritual circles condemning his stand. He told My Nationality delegation that conditions are not ripe to raise the issue at the present, promising to work during his 6-month term on draft laws that are deliverable and feasible. For her part, Lina Abu Habib, the executive director of the Collective for Research and Training on Development (CRTDA), described to Lebanon Debate the serious statement by the minister, who modified his stand from allegedly supportive to totally unsupportive of the just cause. What is most alarming, Abu Habib said, is that the minister changed his viewpoint under pressure from religious leaders. She questioned the credibility of a minister who, while authorized to implement the Constitution, including equality, shies away under the influence of religion. Ogassapian’s declaration, Abu Habib noted, prepares the ground for indefinite imbalance and unjustness as far as women’s rights and equality are concerned, including their right to abortion and bequeathing, and putting them under the jurisdiction of clerics who, we all know, are completely against. Abu Habib sarcastically suggested changing the name of a ‘ministry for women’s affairs’ into a ‘ministry for women’s affairs as seen by religious leaders’