351 citizens of the country requested an amendment to their names, or the names of their tribes, during the past four months, with the competent authorities, after the General Administration of Nationality and Residence issued instructions regarding taking specific procedures for citizens of the country regarding those amendments, according to the Assistant Director for Nationality and Passport Affairs in the Department. Citizenship and residency in Dubai, Colonel Ali bin Ghanem Al Marri, who said, “After the increase in requests to amend data, which constituted a phenomenon, federal instructions were issued to regulate it, and oblige Those wishing to do so must meet the stipulated conditions.
The Director General of the Emirates Identity Authority, Darwish Al Zarouni, confirmed that “changing names or tribes after issuing the ID card does not constitute an obstacle for anyone wishing to change his data on the card,” considering that “the data is updated at any time, provided that official papers proving this are available.”
He added, “Many citizens believed that issuing an ID card required proving the tribe, given that it is the ‘official document’ that will be approved in all transactions in official departments. As for the amendment to people’s first names, it was linked to the request to change strange names to those known to the state’s citizens.”
Rashid (23 years old), the current name of one of the citizens, whose name was Haitham, said, “My previous name used to cause me problems with those around my country, and that exposed me to embarrassment,” continuing, “So I wanted to change my name to Rashid, in order to avoid those problems.” Embarrassing questions, and also for the future, in order to spare my children the embarrassment of their father’s name.”
For his part, Colonel Al-Marri explained that the conditions for amending the name and tribe were specified regarding amendments to the first name only, by “dividing them into three categories, the first of which are citizens by law, the second of which are citizens by naturalization, and the last of which are female citizens by dependency.”
He explained that “the conditions for amending names for citizens by law are that the applicant for the amendment be unmarried or married and whose children are still minors, and that the amendment be for the first name only, and compound names are included in this.” As for the naturalized citizen, Al-Marri continued, “the previous two conditions are imposed on him.” In addition, on the condition that the name does not fit with the common names in the country.
Al-Marri added, “The conditions imposed on female citizens regarding the amendment to the first name are that the name be one of the names that is not common in the country, the requirement that five years have passed from the date of her obtaining the citizenship of the country, and that she have children who are citizens of the country.”
As for adding or amending a tribe or fame, Al-Marri explained that “to complete this procedure, the application must be submitted to a local citizenship administration, and then in turn, you contact the General Administration of Nationality and Residence, which sends initial approval to investigate the case to the local administration, which requires the applicant to bring a document from The Sharia Court shall indicate the required change, amendment or addition, and that the applicant for the amendment or addition must present one of his relatives as a witness and two citizen witnesses, in addition to proof of the investigation of the criminal case, and an announcement in one of the daily newspapers, and that the person requesting the change must not be He is wanted by any party or circulated to him, and is not one of those with a criminal record, taking into account research, investigation, and accuracy in gathering information.”
It is noteworthy that Article (216) of the Federal Penal Code stipulates that “forgery of a document is changing the truth in it in one of the ways constructed after a change that would cause harm and with the intention of using it as a valid document. One of the methods of forgery is: impersonating or replacing one’s identity in a document prepared to prove it.” And distorting the truth in a document once it is written in what was prepared to prove it. Article (217) stipulates that “forgery of an official document is punishable by imprisonment for a period not exceeding 10 years, and forgery of an unofficial document is punishable by imprisonment.”
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The Director of the Sharia Cases Department at the Dubai Courts, Mohammed Abdul Rahman, said, “Attributing tribes is not an easy matter, so the federal government decided to issue instructions that organize and govern the process,” continuing that “it is not possible to change the name of a tribe to another tribe, but rather amend the name of a tribe that was made by mistake.” in editing it, or adding the name of a tribe that had been inadvertently omitted in previous years and not added,” considering that “updating the identity data to obtain the unified identity card has prompted citizens to seek… To record the names of their tribes in their official papers, either by amendment or addition.”
Abdul Rahman stressed that “the Penal Code punishes any person who provides incorrect information to official bodies, as it exposes him to legal accountability.”