Around 270 people, including journalists and communicators, religious leaders, politicians, lawyers and representatives of human rights groups have established a “Committee for Solidarity with Denationalized People” with the objective of looking for a solution for the children of foreigners who will be affected by the Constitutional Court’s recent nationality ruling.
They say they are concerned there may be a massive dispossession of nationality that is unprecedented in any democratic nation.
The group went on to say that Constitutional Court ruling 2013, which establishes that the children of illegal immigrants are not Dominican, could affect more than 668,000 people, which they described as a “serious human tragedy.”
The committee announced that they would start with a series of conferences at national level to increase awareness of the impact of the sentence and said that they thought the solution would be to reinterpret the Dominican constitution and allow nationality to everyone born on Dominican soil apart from those in transit or children of diplomats.
The committee members include journalists Juan Bolivar Diaz, Ramon Colombo, Patricia Solano and Roberto Cavada; lawyers Nassef Perdomo, Olivo Rodriguez and Francisco Alvarez; priests Mario Serrano, Augusto Sandino Sanchez and Julio Holguin; and singers Pavel Nunez and Roldan Marmol.
Meanwhile, Diario Libre’s Executive Editor Adriano Miguel Tejada announced that work to quantify the numbers of people who may be affected was going well and that the inventory of foreigners in the civil registry will conclude this week. Tejada said the figures would be reliable.
On the matter, Central Electoral Board (JCE) president Roberto Rosario said, as reported in Diario Libre: “Some influential people in the media (…) have been misinforming the public about Ruling 168-13 of the Constitutional Court.” He said that their statement that around 668,000 people would be denationalized was a “product of creativity and imagination.” He said: “Many of these people who have made creative use of their imagination will be left with a long face.”
www.diariolibre.com/noticias/2013/11/06/i409787_informe-del-registro-civil-estaraa-listo-esta-semana.html