Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Thomas Hammarberg warns: several hundred thousand stateless people in Europe need extra protection

Thomas Hammarberg, Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, released a comment on right to nationality and stateless people in Europe. Having a nationality is a basic human right, so basic that it amounts to a “right to have rights”, says Hammarberg adding that many stateless persons have little possibility to make themselves heard and are in many cases silenced by fear of discrimination. The Commissioner for Human Rights expresses that even now, on the 50th anniversary of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, many people remain without a nationality and the United Nations Refugee Agency UNHCR estimates the number of stateless people in Europe as many as 589 000. Moreover Hammarberg says that stateless persons are often marginalised and when they lack birth certificates, identity cards, passports and other documents, they risk being excluded from education, healthcare, social assistance and the right to vote. Hammarberg calls on the countries hosting stateless people to comply with the international law adding that governments, ombudsmen, national human rights institutions and non-governmental organisations should take action to defend the rights of stateless people.

Habipoğlu: the problem of Article 19 is the issue of restoration of the nationality

Halit Habipoğlu, President of the Federation of the Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF), made the following statement: “It is very important that the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Thomas Hammarberg draws attention to the problem of stateless people living in Europe…Yet, the issue of stateless people does not get enough attention in Europe…Therefore, the ABTTF makes special efforts to bring the issue of stateless people who were deprived of their nationality under the former Article 19 of the Greek Nationality Code on to the international agenda. Most of these denationalized people have today acquired the nationality of another country and live abroad or have remained in Greece and continue their lives as stateless persons. As the Commissioner for Human Rights states, the problem of Article 19 is the issue of ‘restoration of the nationality’…And it is our homeland Greece which has to solve this ongoing problem”.