Lebanon (finally) OKs Removal of Confession on ID Cards

Lebanon's minister of the Interior issued a decree Wednesday that would allow Lebanese citizens the choice of removing their religion from national ID cards. Interior Minister Ziad Baroud issued a circular on giving each person the right to erase any mention of religious affiliation on civil registry records.

The decree from the Interior Ministry stated that henceforth the registration clerk will have to accept demands from citizens to remove the mention of a person's religious affiliation without additional paperwork or bureaucratic procedures; in lieu of a person's religion, which until now was obligatory, a simple slash sign ( / ) will be inserted on the civil status registry records.

And if state records have no mention of religion, therefore neither can identity cards. If to some this might be seen as somewhat trivial, nevertheless it is a great victory for pro-secularists that have fought hard to make this into a reality.

A women's rights group encouraged Lebanese citizens during the 1975-1990 civil war to cross out the line on their ID cards where religion was mentioned.

The minister of Interior said that omitting the mention of one's religion was in fact stipulated in the country's constitution and is one of the basic tenets of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international agreements.

Article 9 of the Lebanese constitution refers to freedom of belief, yet until now all Lebanese ID cards identified individuals as belonging to one of Lebanon's 18 different religious groups.

Article B of the constitution, introduced as an amendment in 1990, affirmed Lebanon's commitment to the U.N. Charters and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Constitutional Council decided that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that, "Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance."

While this step is highly welcomed, it is a decree that should have been introduced more than 30 years ago. The absence of one's religious affiliation on the national identity card could have saved the lives of thousands who were mindlessly killed during the civil war, based purely on what religion was marked on their ID cards.