Petition for the Forgotten Baluch Citizens in Iran
The Islamic Republic of Iran does not provide accurate statistics about the number of Baluch citizens who do not possess an identity card in Iran, and in reality, it minimizes the number of these forgotten Baluch citizens. The Baluch minority is underrepresented in government and has a long history of systematic political, cultural, and religious discrimination at the hands of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The issues faced by the Baluch citizens in Iran are multi-faceted such as discriminatory land confiscation, arbitrary arrests, death penalties, extrajudicial executions, and lack of language and religious rights. But, another serious challenge that thousands of Baluch people face, including roughly 80,000 children, is the lack of citizenship. These people remain unidentified in the Iranian system and are deprived of necessities, opportunities, and already limited services a citizen enjoys in Iran.
Due to deprivation and poverty, Baluch people, particularly those in the remote areas of Sistan and Baluchistan and Hormozgan, cannot travel the required distances to obtain birth certificates. Poverty, inaccessibility of the area, and lack of transportation have made it difficult for Baluch citizens to visit the cities and apply for a birth certificate. For a poor villager, it is impossible to travel a long distance to the provincial capital Zahedan to receive a DNA report. The people who live away from cities have no means or access to government facilities and cannot obtain birth certificates immediately after birth in local hospitals. If not registered on time, for instance, within a week, a child needs to undergo DNA tests to prove his/her biological relationship with the parents and to conduct the DNA test, the family has to travel to the provincial capital Zahedan where the facility is available, implying the engagement to a costly, and complicated process.
Even though the Islamic Republic of Iran signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1991 and ratified it in 1994[1], according to the residents of Sistan and Baluchestan, the number of people without ID documents in Sistan and Baluchestan province in exceeds 100,000 out of which around 80,000 are children.[2] Without ID cards, individuals are regularly deprived of their most basic rights. They cannot benefit from health services due to the absence of insurance, and they cannot send their children to school. They cannot acquire a decent job.
In this situation, the only hope of the people of Baluchistan is to urge all Iranians to come to their support, to echo their voices so that their helpless pleas may reach the relevant authorities.
We, the signatories of this petition, call for an end to the discrimination and neglect of the authorities regarding the problems of Baluchestan and, in particular, ask the government to facilitate the process of obtaining DNA tests and birth certificates smooth and accessible for Baluch citizens, through providing government-administered maternity clinics and registration offices in villages as well equipping nearest local hospitals in the area with DNA test services.
Recent events
-
See where all the votes are coming from
Province Number of signatures East Azerbaijan 2 West Azerbaijan 4 Ardabil 0 Isfahan 5 Alborz 2 Ilam 0 Bushehr 2 Tehran 15 Chahar Mahaal and Bakhtiari 1 South Khoresan 1 Razavi Khoresan 4 North Khoresan 1 Khuzestan 3 Zanjan 1 Samnan 1 Sistan and Baluchestan 1 Fars 3 Qazvin 0 Qom 4 Kurdistan 4 Kerman 4 Kermanshah 0 Kohgiluyehv And Boyer Ahmad 0 Golestan 0 Gilan 0 Lorestan 0 Mazandaran 2 Markazi 0 Hormozgan 3 Hamadan 1 Yazd 0 -
Latest signatures
-
-
همسایه دیوار به دیوار مایند!
-
شناسنامه برای شهروندان بلوچ
-
حمایت از حقوق قانونی شهروندان بلوچ
-
شناسنامه برای شهروندان بلوچ
-
-
امضا محفوظ started this petition
شناسنامه حق همه است