Brandon Reece Taylorian is an associate lecturer and researcher at the University of Lancashire (UK).
Introduction
Government-issued identity (ID) documents are commonplace, from passports to birth and marriage certificates to national ID cards.[1] These documents play an important role in civil society, national security, and international travel. However, several states issue ID documents in ways that discriminate based on religion or belief, causing reasonable concerns for those monitoring conditions of freedom of religion or belief (FoRB). This post summarizes discriminatory state practices in issuing national ID documents and their impacts on the freedoms of religious communities and individuals. Surveying such practices highlights the intersection of several FoRB violations, including withholding citizenship from members of disfavored religions and placing undue restraints on the economic and social mobility of members of religious minorities.
Crucial to this discussion is what rights citizens are deprived of if they fail to qualify for one or more ID documents. Controversies arise most commonly in the following contexts: (1) members of religious minority communities attempting to register their child’s birth or register for public school, (2) couples attemptIingng to register an interreligious marriage, (3) members of unrecognized religions attempting to register for passports, and (4) converts from the state religion attempting to change their religious affiliation on their ID documents. If states impose policies that discriminate between religious communities or make stating one’s religion on ID documents a mandatory requirement, the negative impacts are greater, making violations of FoRB more likely.
Discriminatory State Practices
The practice of including religious affiliation on ID documents is seen as contrary to the right to FoRB by international standards, given the potential for discrimination where citizens must disclose their religion or lack thereof. Four key types of discriminatory practices exist: (1) states only issuing ID documents to members of preferred religions, (2) states preventing members of unrecognized religions from listing their religious affiliation on ID documents, (3) states failing to provide a space on ID documents for individuals to express their religious affiliation[2], and (4) states making religious affiliation a mandatory unit of information on ID documents. Secular states usually omit religion from national ID documents. However, several countries with no or limited religion-state autonomy require citizens to declare their religion to obtain an ID card. These are mainly countries where Islam is the state religion, including Afghanistan, Brunei, Egypt,Iran, Iraq, Malaysia, and Pakistan. Other states issuing ID cards featuring religious affiliation include Bhutan, Indonesia, Laos, and Myanmar.
In Afghanistan, government-issued national ID cards indicate an individual’s religion, nationality, tribe, and ethnicity. However, the Taliban government has recently claimed that declaring belief in Islam is not necessary for receiving citizenship.
In Pakistan, the National Database and Registration Authority requires citizens to declare their religious affiliation on their national ID cards (required upon turning 18) and passports. Those wishing to list themselves as Muslim must swear they believe Muhammad is the final prophet and denounce Ahmadiyya’s founder, Mīrzā Gulām Ahmad, as a false prophet and Ahmadis as non-Muslim. There is also no option to state “no religion.” ID cards are required to vote, obtain a state pension, and benefit from social and financial inclusion programs and other government services.
In Iraq, the situation is more opaque. Although national ID cards issued after 2016 do not show the bearer’s religion, the online application to obtain an ID card still requests that citizens declare their religion, and a chip in the card contains data on religion. Iraqis can only choose Christian, Sabean-Mandean, Yezidi, Jew, or Muslim as options in the digital application system. The system categorizes Bahá’í, Kaka’i, and Zoroastrian faiths as “Islam” and provides no affiliation option for those belonging to new religious movements or who have no religion. Nor does the system distinguish between Shias or Sunnis or between diverse Christian denominations. According to Iraqi law, without an ID card, citizens may not register their marriage, enroll their children in public school, obtain government services, or acquire a passport (although passports do not specify religion). Being misrecognized as Muslim in the law in Iraq and other countries governed under Sharia has several implications, as the judicial system will adjudicate personal status law in various areas such as marriage, divorce, custody, and inheritance as if one is Muslim.
In Syria, birth certificates list religious affiliation, as do marriage certificates and documents when traveling for a pilgrimage. Notably, Jewish Syrians are the only religious community whose passports and ID cards list their religion, a remnant of the former Asad regime’s practice of classifying and monitoring religious minorities.
In Jordan, state discrimination against Bahá’ís is ongoing, given that Sharia courts or courts affiliated with recognized religions regularly refuse to issue Bahá’í marriage certificates essential for transferring citizenship to a foreign spouse or for registering for government health insurance and social security. The Department of Civil Status and Passports also refuses to recognize marriages conducted by Bahá’í assemblies. In instances when a Bahá’í couple is erroneously registered as Muslim at the time they married, their children cannot be registered as Bahá’í. However, their child’s birth certificate can include a dash (–) in the space indicating religious affiliation. The U.S. Department of State’s 2023 Report on International Religious Freedom: Jordan explained how some daughters of Bahá’í converts have been unable to marry Bahá’í men because their birth certificates and other ID documents designate their religion as Islam, with erroneous religious designations on ID documents persisting for some third-generation Bahá’ís.
Other states actively use ID documents as part of broader campaigns of persecution against religious minorities. For instance, in Iran, only citizens who self-identify with one of the religions recognized in the Constitution of Iran––Christians, Jews, Muslims, or Zoroastrians—may obtain a national ID card. According to the Atlantic Council, only by taking their case to the Supreme Court did members of Iran’s Bahá’í community officially gain the right to obtain national ID cards, but access remains inconsistent in practice. Members of other religious minorities such as Sabean-Mandaeans, Yarsanis, Christian converts from Islam, or members of new religious movements must either renounce their religion or belief to obtain their ID card, by selecting one of the four recognized religions, or live as ghost citizens. Under Iranian law those without a religious affiliation or individuals who self-identify as atheists or humanists have no option to obtain an ID card. Previously an “other religions” option had existed for religious minorities not belonging to one of the state-recognized religions, but the government withdrew this option in January 2020.[3] These practices would have less of a negative impact on unrecognized religious communities if having an ID card were not made compulsory by the state and were not essential for gaining access to “insurance, education, banking, and public transportation.” Iran’s policy is an example of ID documents being weaponized to restrict various freedoms, not limited to FoRB, including the right to education, a family life, and freedom of movement.
However, discriminatory practices involving ID documents are not limited to Islamic countries. For example, in Sri Lanka, Buddhist nuns (formally called bhikkunīs) are routinely refused national ID cards by the Ministry of Buddhasasana, due to traditional interpretations of Buddhist teachings that do not support full ordination for women, thus preventing nuns from opening bank accounts, applying for passports, or accessing educational benefits that require completing government examinations. In Vietnam, members and leaders of unregistered religious communities, including Buddhists independent of the state-controlled Vietnam Buddhist Sangha, Protestant house churches, and some Cao Đài groups, are regularly deprived of the right to freedom of movement by state authorities refusing to allow them to leave the country or withholding passport issuance. In Myanmar, Buddhists must prove their religion on their national ID card to register for a Buddhist marriage. National ID cards are also often integrated into registration laws for religious organizations, where registration is an essential process for a religious community to legally exercise their right to gather in public or private residences to observe their religion. For example, in Ethiopia, Tunisia, and Uganda, the law requires the founders of a religious organization to provide their ID cards to register their organization. In São Tomé and Príncipe, the law requires that a religious group seeking registration must have at least 500 citizen members who are obliged to show their ID cards as proof.
Finally, several states place bans or severe restrictions on changing religious affiliation on ID documents, especially where religious conversion is banned or restricted, including Bhutan, Myanmar, Nepal, and wherever governments strictly enforce Sharia law. For example, due to the Sharia ban on conversion, the Jordanian government prohibits converts from Islam from changing their religion on electronic records, with government officials often unwilling to cooperate with such requests.
Recommendations
Given how several states discriminate based on religion when issuing ID documents, new standards or guidelines may be warranted at the international and/or national level to address these issues to prevent their recurrence or reduce their prevalence and impacts on the freedoms of religious individuals and communities. Since discriminatory state practices involving ID documents tend to appear in countries where Buddhism or Islam is the state religion, regional bodies like ASEAN or blocs like the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which establish forums for such countries to discuss human rights issues, may be crucial in fostering new approaches to issuing ID documents that refrain from infringing on religious equality. Furthermore, where registration requirements for religious organizations involve discriminatory ID requirements, reference to and implementation of existing guidelines like the OSCE’s Guidelines on the Legal Personality of Religious or Belief Communities are also important in promoting and establishing standards of best practice.
References:
[1] Colin Bennett & David Lyon, Playing the ID Card: Understanding the Significance of Identity Card Systems, inPlaying the Identity Card: Surveillance, Security and Identification in Global Perspective 3 (Colin Bennett & David Lyon eds., 2008).
[2] Removing an option to declare religious affiliation or non-affiliation on ID documents is problematic because it leaves individuals vulnerable to being discriminated against if religious personal laws are misapplied (i.e., those who have left the religion they were assigned at birth). This can be important in areas such as adoption and guardianship, child custody, divorce, inheritance, and marriage, but also has the potential to impact individuals in areas like personal hygiene and wearing religious clothing in public. Having the freedom to declare religion or irreligion on an ID document gives clarity to the individual. It means they can use that document to prove their legal affiliation, especially in countries with red tape or cultural taboos around religious conversion. Best practice to avoid violations of FoRB in this area would be to give individuals the option to disclose their religious affiliation or non-affiliation while refraining from making it mandatory to do so.
[3] Andrej Kolárik, Iran’s Policy Towards Religious Minorities, in Security Forum 2021: Conference Proceedings from the 14th Annual International Scientific Conference 155 (David Kollár & Jaroslav Ušiak eds., Matej Bel Univ. 2021).