Tikantepe baby left without birth certificate over the name “Elkhan”

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Tikantepe baby left without birth certificate over the name “Elkhan”

2026.08.22, 13:27

The Civil Registration Office in Robat Karim, Tehran Province, has refused for 20 days to issue a birth certificate for a baby from an Azerbaijani family originally from Tikantepe because the parents named him “Elkhan.”

Gunaz.tv

The child’s father, Sajjad Yektaei Yolghun-Aghaj, spoke to the “Balamin Adi” campaign.

“Our son was born on August 2, 2026, and we named him Elkhan. However, officials at the Robat Karim Civil Registration Office refused to issue his birth certificate, saying: ‘Because the name contains a hamza sign and is not available in the system, we cannot register it. It can only be registered in the forms Ilhan or Ilkhan.’”

“We filed a complaint with the country’s General Inspection Organization to defend our rights. The organization also instructed the Civil Registration Office to review our request. However, the Civil Registration Office again objected to registering our baby’s name, responding: ‘Under Article 15 of the Constitution, the official and common language of the Iranian people is Persian, and documents, correspondence and official texts must be written in this language and script. Elkhan is a Turkish spelling; if desired, it can be selected for boys in its Persian-script form as `Ilhan.`’”

However, Article 15 of the Constitution goes on to state: “The use of local and ethnic languages in the press and mass media, as well as the teaching of their literature in schools alongside the Persian language, is permitted.”

Despite this, the Civil Registration Office is attempting to use a selective and incomplete interpretation of the law to deny us one of our most basic rights: choosing the name we want for our child.

It should be noted that the Civil Registration Office has refused to issue birth certificates for Turkish names on grounds such as “containing a hamza” and being “written in Turkish.” Yet names containing a hamza but not of Turkic origin, such as “Faize,” “Faiqe,” and “Maedeh,” are registered without any difficulty.

Children remaining without birth certificates can face serious consequences, including being denied insurance, vaccinations and healthcare services, preventing parents from receiving government subsidies and Justice Shares (Saham-e Edalat), imposing additional costs on families, and causing stress and psychological pressure for parents.

GUNAZ.TV

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