A new citizenship law that allows the authorities to use citizenship as a weapon to silence opponents and restrict opinions.
This statement was originally published on gc4hr.org on 11 February 2025.
The Sultan of Oman ratified a new citizenship law that allows the authorities to use citizenship as a weapon to silence opponents and restrict opinions, in addition to its harshness against foreign women who marry Omani men. The law follows in the footsteps of Kuwait, which has revoked the citizenship of thousands of citizens, most of them women.
On 2 February 2025, Sultan of Oman Haitham bin Tariq ratified the new Omani citizenship law, and thereby abolished the old citizenship law issued in 2014. The new law contains several arbitrary articles that will lead to depriving citizens, residents and women in general of enjoying their civil and human rights.
Article 17 requires that a foreign resident, before applying for Omani citizenship, must have resided in the country for a period of 15 consecutive years, provided that the resident does not remain absent for more than 90 days each year. This is a very long period that will deprive residents from traveling for various purposes of life, including education.
Article 19 of the law stipulates that in order to grant Omani citizenship to a foreign woman resident married to an Omani citizen, they must have resided together for a period of eight consecutive years, while in the previous law it was only five years.
Article 22 sets harsh conditions for granting Omani citizenship to minor children born to an Omani mother, including that she be a widow or divorcee, and that she has been widowed or divorced for five years, or that her husband has been absent from her or abandoned her for ten years.
The text of Article 26 regarding the revocation of Omani citizenship can be considered very dangerous as it contains vague and undefined terms that allow it to be used by the authorities, especially the notorious Internal Security Service, in order to silence citizens who oppose or criticise government practices and express opinions that do not conform to its official views.
The text of Article 26 in its first and second items includes the following:
Omani citizenship shall be revoked from an Omani in the following cases:
1. Someone who verbally or physically offends the Sultanate of Oman or the Sultan himself.
2. Someone who belongs to a group, party or organisation that embraces principles or beliefs that harm the interests of the Sultanate of Oman.
Omani lawyers confirmed to the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) their legitimate concerns about the use of this article to restrict the public freedoms of citizens, and they also explained that the vague wording is deliberate to pave the way for the authorities to use this law as a weapon within the system of repression created by the government.
In addition, the law lacks any mechanism that grants those affected by this law, especially those whose nationalities are revoked, the right to resort to the judiciary to file their complaints against what is their right according to the text of article 15 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which clearly states that, “Everyone has the right to a nationality. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his [or her] nationality nor denied the right to change his [or her] nationality.”
GCHR calls on the Omani government to immediately rewrite the new Omani Nationality Law, with a government approach that preserves the civil and human rights of all citizens and residents. It must also ensure that affected individuals are granted the right to appeal before the court.
We call on the Omani government to respect the rights of citizens to express their opinions and demonstrate peacefully freely without facing the penalty of revocation of citizenship. The government must also respect human rights agreements and amend the new Nationality Law accordingly.
