Alirza Quluncu, Voice of America, November 13, 2024
Iran's civil registration authority in Urmia has refused to issue an ID card for a baby born approximately 75 days ago to the Babapur family, named AlpAslan.
This was reported by the Instagram account "Dan Dergisi," which shared an audio file from the baby's father, Salar Babapur.
According to Babapur, the registration office refused to issue an ID card with the Turkish name they had chosen for their child before birth. He stated that the office rejected AlpAslan because it was not included in the Iranian civil registration online portal’s list of approved names.
The baby’s father mentioned that he had appealed the decision to the court in protest of the registration office's refusal.
In the past, others in Iranian Azerbaijan have had to appeal to the courts to obtain ID cards for their children with the name AlpAslan. Over the past year, at least two families were able to obtain ID cards with this name after months of legal battles.
According to the civil registration authority's practice, names that have been issued ID cards in any province are added to the authority’s approved list. However, according to Turkish language rights defenders, the authorities intentionally prevent the registration of Turkish names by not adding them to the list, forcing families to endure lengthy processes and eventually abandon their efforts to obtain an ID with their chosen Turkish name.
Farhad Javadi, the author of the 2001 Iranian publication Turkish Human Names Dictionary, stated in a previous interview with Voice of America that "officials at the registration office are instructed to prevent the use of Turkish names. They create such conditions that people go back and forth for days, and eventually, they give up and say, ‘Whatever name it is, it doesn’t matter.’"
According to Salar Babapur, due to the lack of an ID card for his child, his family has been unable to access state healthcare and other services for the past 75 days and has been forced to pay high amounts for services from the private sector.
In recent years, the number of families in Iranian Azerbaijan and other provinces with significant Turkish populations who choose Turkish names for their children seems to have increased. Families tend to prefer names that are especially popular in Turkey.
Families in Iranian Azerbaijan and Tehran have been trying to raise their voices through social media, as many have struggled for months, or even years, to obtain ID cards for their children with the Turkish names they have selected. Previously, reports circulated on social media about Iranian authorities refusing to issue ID cards for names like Alp Orhan, Sevgi, Yağış, Oğuz Kaan, Onur, Alparslan, Atakan, Ayıl, Hakan, Anar, Türkay, Tarkan, and Volkan. Some of these names were eventually registered after families filed multiple appeals to the registration offices or courts.
In various cities, civil registration offices often refuse to issue ID cards for names that are not of Iranian or Islamic origin, are foreign, or are not included in the approved list.
Link to the original text in Turkish on the Azerbaijani section of Voice of America:
Urmiyə qeydiyyat şöbəsi bir uşağa Alpaslan adlı ilə şəxsiyyət vəsiqəsi verməyi rədd edir