Hamid Melikoglu, Voice of America, November 24, 2020
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The Civil Registry Office in the city of Tikantepe (Tekab), in the West Azerbaijan province, initially refused to issue an identity card to a child named Onur because of the family's choice of name. However, the Iranian Civil Registry Office eventually responded positively to the family's request.
Onur, born in May 2017, was denied an identity card because of his name. His father, Ali Hidayati, shared the news on his personal Instagram account, stating, “After 3 years and 6 months of effort, the Tikantəpə Civil Registry Office was forced to issue an identity card for Onur.”
After the Civil Registry Office in Tikantəpə refused to issue an identity card for Onur, his father had to resort to legal action, as their attempts to resolve the issue with the office were unsuccessful.
For 42 months, Onur was deprived of an identity card, which led to him being denied various citizenship rights during these years.
Although the initial court did not accept Onur's father's complaint, the appellate court ruled that the Civil Registry Office had no legal grounds for refusing to issue an identity card to Onur, and a ruling was made that the child must be issued an identity card based on his family's request.
In recent months, an artist from Ardabil, Səccad Colani, shared a video on social media, revealing that the Ardabil Civil Registry Office had also refused to issue an identity card for a newly born child named Anıl.
The Civil Registry Office stated that they had sent a team of three people to Tehran to confirm the name Anıl for Colani's child, but received a negative response from Tehran.
Human rights organization Erk has sent a report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child regarding the difficulties families face in Iran when choosing Turkish names for their children and obtaining identity cards.
The right to freely choose a child's name from birth is one of the fundamental human rights specified in Article 7 of the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Link to the original text in Turkish on the Azerbaijani section of Voice of America:
İran Azərbaycanında Onur adlı uşağa 42 ay sonra şəxsiyyət vəsiqəsi verilib