MP George Adwan (third from left) heads a meeting of the Parliament's Justice and Administration Committee, Beirut, Sept. 26, 2023. (Credit: Ali Fawwaz / Lebanese Parliament)
BEIRUT — Parliament's Justice and Administration Committee on Tuesday approved a draft law that would restrict stateless people born in Lebanon since 2011 from obtaining Lebanese citizenship, the head of the committee, MP Goerge Adwan, announced at a press conference.
The draft law will now progress to Parliament, where its supporters will seek the legislature's approval for it.
MP Ghassan Atallah (FPM/Koura), who submitted the draft bill, had earlier told L’Orient Today it aims to prevent Syrian refugees from “unduly” obtaining Lebanese nationality. The law mentions the year 2011, which is the year the Syrian war started.
In Lebanon, if a child is not registered with a Lebanese municipality within a year of their birth, they will be identified as stateless in official Lebanese records.
During the turmoil that ensued in the years following the outbreak of civil war in Syria in 2011, more than a million Syrians sought refuge in Lebanon, according to the Lebanese government’s estimates. Some children born to these refugees in Lebanon were never registered in either territory and are therefore considered stateless.
According to Lebanese nationality law experts, children are entitled to Lebanese nationality if they are born in Lebanon to stateless parents, to parents of unknown nationality or unidentified parents, or if they cannot claim the nationality of any other country at the time of their birth.
An earlier draft of the law approved by the committee would have denied Lebanese nationality to the children of Lebanese families who went unregistered within a year of their birth; however, MP George Adwan told L'Orient Today that this loophole has been closed in the latest version, as children of Lebanese fathers may get a DNA test to prove their Lebanese origins and entitle them to apply for citizenship.
Siren Associates, a governance and transparency NGO earlier this year told L’Orient Today that there are approximately 27,000 stateless people in total in Lebanon.