Hoss decries decision, saying that removing passports from ‘some citizens would definitely cause great suffering’

Adnan El-Ghoul
Daily Star staff

Palestinians families who became Lebanese citizens in 1994 fear that efforts to revoke their acquired citizenship might succeed, but it is likely that only a few will have their citizenship taken from them.
“The fears are exaggerated because the ruling might result in the revocation of just a few cases,” according to Ghassan Abdullah, the executive coordinator of the Palestinian Human Rights Organization (PHRO).
According to Farid al-Khazen, the chairman of the Political Studies Department at the American University of Beirut: “It is too late to do anything about the citizenship decree. The Shura Council should not have waited nine years to produce this ruling.”
Khazen argued that the ruling put the problem back in the hands of the authorities who had caused it in the first place. “The council had the chance to revoke the decree or endorse it, but instead they assigned the Interior Ministry to re-examine the forgeries made under its auspices.”
Those critical of the 1994 Citizenship Decree hoped to get a more decisive ruling on the issue.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, former Prime Minister Salim Hoss said that “revoking the citizenship of some citizens would definitely cause great suffering. Moreover, we must be careful not to discriminate by concentrating on the files of those of Palestinian origin.”
Khazen said that the Interior Ministry should look into all files without exception. “Granting citizenship to Palestinians violates the Arab League decisions against policies that ignore the refugees’ right of return to their country,” Khazen added. “Moreover, collectively granting citizenship to groups is unconstitutional and the ruling of the council should have been based on the Constitution, not on political considerations.”
He said that the ruling has put the problem back into the hands of politicians, who would only make the same mistakes, trying to solve the problem in exactly the same way.
Hoss said in his statement that he was against granting citizenship to groups of people. However, he said that “thousands of families have adjusted their lives to their new reality (Lebanese citizenship); new children were born as Lebanese, others served in the army, voted in elections or got jobs that were previously unavailable to them.”
“We cannot deprive newborns of their citizenship without causing a human tragedy.”
Abdullah broadly agreed with Hoss on the issue, saying that “we oppose granting citizenship to Palestinians; however, we do not approve of punishing whole families because the father committed a forgery.”
“If it can be proven that false documents were used to obtain citizenship illegally, courts should try the forger and not his family. If they did, they would be violating basic human rights and imposing a form of collective punishment,” he added.
He said that those who collaborated in the act of forgery were also culpable. This meant that the decision to revoke citizenship was unjust since the Interior Ministry granted citizenship to those who presented false papers. “The Interior Ministry is making Palestinians pay for its own mistakes and for its corrupt personnel.”
Interior Minister Elias Murr has yet to examine the files of those who falsified their papers, but those who support stripping the citizenship from those who falsified papers are likely to be disappointed, Khazen said.
However, he added, they could prevent thousands of individuals who missed the deadline from submitting claims.