Manar al-Zubaidi-Baghdad
The 25-year-old poet, Risan Hamed, had no idea that her joy with her son would not last after she learned that she would have no identity. She sat there in the corner of her dark room next to her husband, carrying her first-year-old baby.
"When I gave birth to a youngster, I felt like I had the whole world," she said. "I got it after a long wait, but my happiness quickly disappeared when the staff of the nationality department in Diwaniya (southern Iraq) expelled me and said no rights to you."
She often has chronic remorse and a sense of guilt toward her unknown little self. She does not know what she will answer when he grows up and asks her: Where is my identity?
Asharq wonders loudly about the crime committed by the Roma to deprive them of their most basic civil rights, even of their nationality. It also believes that marginalization and exclusion of government and community "deliberate" to eliminate them in Iraq.
| A Gypsy who loses his nationality by loss or damage will remain anonymous (Al Jazeera) |
until a further notice
The newly married Roma youth suffer from this problem. After all the legal marriage procedures have been completed, they are not allowed to change the nationality information they hold. The husband and wife remain single in the Civil Status Department, which leads them to refrain from procreation for fear of having an illegitimate child. After the implementation of the national identity card "without identity".
A person who loses his or her nationality by loss or damage will remain anonymous, because the alternative is the national identity card that was denied to the Roma until further notice.
The gypsy child, Mansur Khairi, was unable to attend school despite the fact that his parents had papers. "I was overwhelmed by the complexities and procedures in the government departments to obtain citizenship for my son Mansour," his father says. "I can no longer afford the inferiority and financial costs."
During the years following 2003, Gypsies were prevented from practicing their profession in the dance and singing they knew and inherited from their forefathers. They did not get the lowest job opportunities. They fought and discarded everyone, ending up begging to live.
Their situation deteriorated and they were forced to split between governorates. Their lives before 2003 were not perfect, but the authorities allowed them to practice their profession and provided them with all services.
Although they hold Iraqi citizenship and other identity papers, the Iraqi government excluded them from issuing the national card - the so-called unified card - for an unknown reason.
| Gypsy children wander, there are no schools to teach them, no state sponsors them (Al Jazeera) |
disclaimer
Al-Jazeera Net had several attempts to obtain a permit from the National Card Directorate in the province, but it refrained under the pretext of directives of the General Administration in Baghdad. The local government in Diwaniyah has vacated its responsibility as the Ministry of the Interior.
Director of the Office of the High Commission for Human Rights in Diwaniyah Mohammed al-Jubouri confirmed to Al-Jazeera Net that the Roma in the provinces of Diyala (east of Baghdad) and Diwaniyah and the rest of the provinces, living in difficult conditions in the deprivation of the national card despite their Iraqi.
Jubouri added that Roma are also deprived of jobs in the public and private sectors, another violation of their right to work in accordance with the Constitution and the Labor Code.
He pointed out that the suffering of the Roma in Diwaniyah violates their natural rights as Iraqi citizens. There is no drinking water network in their village, in addition to the lack of a healthy environment due to the accumulation of waste and the proximity of the landfill site.
According to Jabouri, the High Commission for Human Rights follow the situation of the Roma in the whole of Iraq and monitor violations, and also opened the Iraqi Council of Representatives to approve the amendment of the Nationality Law No. 26 of 2006 to ensure the right of Roma in the national card.
After the destruction of the only children's school in Al-Zuhur village and the deprivation of more than 15 years by religious extremists, a group of activists in Diwaniyah organized a campaign to demand a school in the village under the title "Ghajar Beshr" and carried out their campaign through social media sites, And forcing local authorities to open a new school and literacy centers.
| A child raises the panel to demand a national identity (the island) |
Constitutional violations
Lawyer Ali al-Zubaidi states that depriving the Roma of their rights is a violation of the effective Iraqi constitution, which stipulates in Article 14 that Iraqis are equal before the law in rights and duties. The national card was found to ease the burden of citizens, not to distinguish between citizens on the basis of race, stressing that nationality - in accordance with international treaties - the right of every human being, which is also stipulated in the Iraqi Constitution in Article 18.
According to al-Zubaidi, the nationality law set the rules for the granting of citizenship to Iraqis and foreigners, but did not address the situation of Roma who were granted the certificate of Iraqi nationality, except for the law to grant Iraqi nationality without a legal text, To remedy the problem, the law on nationality must be amended.
The gypsy history of Diwaniyah dates back to the beginning of the 20th century after the first Gypsy family settled there, and then moved to the areas of Kemaliyah, Ishaq and Basra. In the 1950s, the Iraqi authorities tried to integrate them into society and established a primary school for their children in 1964 in the village of Zohour.
Some of Diwaniyah's elders and sheikhs married some beautiful gypsy women to prevent them from practicing prostitution. As a result, children were born, some of whom became responsible in the state, but they denied their demise, said historical expert Ghaleb al-Kaabi.