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Iraqi lawmakers demand given titles be removed from national IDs

September 15, 2015 at 1:40 pm

Members of the Iraqi Parliament demanded people’s given titles be removed from ID cards which the government is planning to issue in a couple of months, in an effort to prevent a repeat of the wave of murders that took place in 2006-2007 and claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Iraqis.

The lawmakers presented their request after parliament’s second reading of the national identification card project on Sunday.

Member of the government’s Security and Defence Committee, Hoshyar Abdul Karim, said in a statement yesterday: “We demand every day to have a civilian state which has been supported by the religious authorities; however there are still calls within parliament demanding we maintain the title.”

“The parliament and its speaker must take a firm decision to remove the title from the card,” he said.

Abdul Karim pointed out that there is a need to omit the title especially at this time, “after the country witnessed the killing of many citizens because of their names.”

Security expert Majid Al-Tikriti said that although it is important to remove the given title from the ID cards to protect the Iraqi people, the information can be beneficial as it allows “security services to identify those wanted at anytime and anywhere”.

The Iraqi National Directorate of Security said the unified national card project comes to enhance security, detect intruders and protect the country from illegal immigrants.