Hatay: A State That Judges the Parent, Not the Child, Is an Ethnocracy

In a social media post, Hatay condemned the Republic’s treatment of children born from mixed marriages, highlighting the inconsistent and exclusionary nature of current citizenship practices. He pointed out that while some Turkish Cypriot children born in the north are granted identification, others—born under similar circumstances—are denied this right solely because one of their parents entered Cyprus through a port deemed “illegal.”

Hatay stressed that these policies affect not only individuals but entire families. He noted that children who grow up in the same neighbourhoods, attend the same schools, and may even be siblings can find themselves in drastically different legal positions, with one recognised as a citizen and the other rendered invisible.

“These policies do not just judge the children,” Hatay said, “but their parents too, forming a kind of ‘moral tribunal’ that claims the authority to decide who is a ‘real’ Turkish Cypriot.”

He concluded by stating that “if a state judges not the child, but who gave birth to the child, it has abandoned the principles of the rule of law and embraced a discriminatory, ethnocratic system.”