Hamid Melikoglu, Voice of America, December 28, 2021
 |
| The Iranian Ministry of Interior's Civil Registration Office |
A family in Tabriz, Iranian Azerbaijan, has faced obstacles in obtaining an ID card for their child with the name Alparslan. Despite two months passing since the family’s application to the Tabriz Civil Registration Office, the child has still been denied an ID card with the name Alparslan.
The human rights organization Arak Society reported this issue.
Mustafa Avazpur, a civil activist from Tabriz, stated that his son Alparslan’s Turkish name was the reason the Tabriz Civil Registration Office refused to issue him an ID card.Avazpur expressed his dissatisfaction with the Iranian government’s "policy against Turks," noting that the family has faced many problems due to the lack of an ID card for their child. The father of Alparslan stated that due to not having an ID card, his child has been deprived of vaccination and insurance services.
Choosing Turkish names for children has become particularly popular among national activists in Iranian Azerbaijan. Families who wish to give their children Turkish names and obtain ID cards often undergo lengthy procedures, and sometimes succeed in obtaining an ID card with a positive court decision. However, there are also families who, after many years of struggle, are still unable to obtain an ID card for their child.
The Arak Society, which works on human rights, shared on its social media page that the Civil Registration Office has refused to issue ID cards for children with names such as Ayıl, Anar, Sevgi, Yağış, Atakan, Oğuz, Türkay, Tarkan, and Anna.
The Iranian Civil Registration Office justifies its objection to Turkish names by claiming that these names are not of Iranian origin. Recently, in an interview with Voice of America, Taymaz Mehralibeyli, the father of a child named Huntay, who was also denied registration, pointed out that many children’s names from other countries and cultures, including Greek names, were included in the list of approved names.
The right of parents to choose their child’s name from birth is stipulated in Article 7 of the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child and is considered one of the fundamental human rights.
Link to the original text in Turkish on the Azerbaijani section of Voice of America:
İran Qeydiyyat İdarəsi Alparslan adına şəxsiyyət vəsiqəsi verməkdən imtina edib