My Nationality Campaign categorically rejects discriminatory laws proposals

My Nationality is a Right for Me and My Family Campaign held a press conference yesterday at the Press Syndicate in which it announced its rejection of the racist and discriminatory proposals on the nationality law. It pointed to the drafts stacked in the Legislature to lay bare the practices that undermined the right of Lebanese women married to non-Lebanese to confer citizenship to their children. The press conference was attended by representatives of local and international civil society groups, syndicate members, academics, activists and women and families concerned with the demands of the Campaign. During the conference, the Press Syndicate vice president, Dr. Faoud Harakeh, repeated the Syndicate’s support of the Campaign’s demands, appealing to the prime minister and House Speaker to give the issue due attention. For her part, the executive director of Women’s Learning Partnership, Lina Abu Habib, voiced her surprise over the proposals submitted, namely the NCLW draft which she termed as bigoted. She pointed out that the Campaign kicked off from Lebanon in 2000 to reach most of the Arab countries, noting that many have amended their laws accordingly in terms of recognition of the rights of women, while Lebanon dragged behind. The Lebanese State did not acknowledge the rights of women, but not that only, it also stigmatized the issue by employing political and sectarian sways. Similarly, the head of the Lebanese Council of Women, Iqbal Doughan, said that while a number of proposals are currently submitted to the Parliament, and some of them promote equal rights and are relatively fair to women, yet this diversity can be in point of fact an intrigue to continue with denying those rights. The coordinator of My Nationality Campaign, Karima Chebbo, reiterated her support for the proposals filed by MPs Hadi Abul Hissen and Roula Tabsh and which noticeably endorse the Campaigns demands, but turned down the blinkered draft proposed by NCLW. Chebbo revealed official procrastination in stepping up a debate of the above two proposals by concerned parliamentary committees under unwanted pretexts. She finally warned that the Campaign’s upcoming move will take to the steps of the Legislature to push the draft bills from the Parliament Secretariat to the committees. (My Nationality Campaign statement can be found on the link below: (https://bit.ly/31PebNp)
 

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