Draft citizenship law to render many 'stateless': RMMRU

The proposed citizenship law is likely to render many people stateless due to a number of shortcomings in its different provisions, legal experts said today.

The experts came up with the observation at a workshop titled “Concept of Nationality, Citizenship Rights and Draft Citizenship Act, 2016” organised at The Daily Star centre in Dhaka by Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU).

Demanding revision of the draft of “Citizenship Law, 2016”, they said it lacks proper specifications of language and phrase which can be manipulated by any ruling political parties in future.

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The cabinet gave its final approval to the draft on February 1 this year.

Terming the benefit of citizenship as “assurance of protection from the state”, Supreme Court barrister Rashna Imam at the programme said people in the enclaves will remain stateless until they are included in the gazette notifications.

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RMMRU executive director Prof CR Abrar said the draft bill should have been formulated with “the least principles of natural judgement”.

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He also proposed for framing laws on refugees to protect them as human beings considering the universal perspectives.

According to the draft, a foreign national who marries a Bangladeshi can get citizenship fulfilling five conditions.

The conditions are:  she/he would have to live in Bangladesh for five years; is not a citizen of any country “prohibited” by the Bangladesh government; his/her parents and grandparents are not engaged in a war against Bangladesh and are not the enemy force of a foreign country; s/he does not live in Bangladesh illegally; and is not a citizen of any country that has no diplomatic relations with Bangladesh. Other speakers opined that if passed in parliament, the law would get into trouble even those who formulated it.

On the other hand, it denies citizenship to descendants of those who fought against Bangladesh, denied its existence or engaged in activities against Bangladesh.