REPORT: Lebanese for over 53 years call for the right to belong to a country

At a time when many Lebanese complain about their Lebanese nationality and strive to get foreign ones, others are fighting to acquire it. Some people have Lebanese ancestors since 1925 but do not have the nationality because they are “Muslim Sunnites”, according to them. Others have been Lebanese for over 53 years but the state is still studying their cases one by one.           

Those who are seeking to acquire the Lebanese nationality are either born of a Lebanese mother and a foreign father or unnaturalized citizens. After numerous attempts, they held a protest today outside the national museum to call for their most basic right: the right to belong to a country.        

In this regard, the Head of the Individual Initiative for Human Rights Organization Mustafa al-Chaar said that these persons are from the Bekaa, Beirut, Tripoli and south Lebanon and are estimated at over 100,000.  “They cannot register their newborns, they have no social security and they cannot cross army checkpoints,” he said.


For the full LBCI report, watch the video above