Protesters against the Constitutional Court's decision to strip thousands of their nationality. Taken from the Facebook page of the organization, reconoci.do. [All links in this article lead to Spanish language sites, except where otherwise noted.] ¿Por qué en el Caribe siempre hay que huir hacia la libertad, o mejor, hacia un espacio que se dibuja en la imaginación como el de la libertad? La respuesta es obvia: las sociedades caribeñas son de las más represivas del mundo. —Antonio Benítez Rojo, La isla que se repite: El Caribe y la perspectiva posmoderna Why is it that in the Caribbean people must always flee in search of liberty, or towards an imaginary space portrayed as liberty. The answer is obvious: Caribbean societies are among the most repressive in the world. —Antonio Benítez Rojo, La isla que se repite: El Caribe y la perspectiva posmoderna Following the decision by the Constitutional Court of the Dominican Republic (Tribunal Constitucional de la República Dominicana) to strip citizenship from all those born in the country to immigrants with an illegal status, the truth contained in the above quote is revealed with stunning clarity. The repercussions of this unappealable decision by the Constitutional Court will affect several generations of Dominicans of Haitian origin, whose families came to make their lives in the Dominican Republic. The majority have never even visited Haiti, nor have family there. Even so, from one day to another, thousands of people have been left effectively stateless. It is unknown exactly how many people will be affected by this decision. According to information from the National Office of Statistics (Oficina Nacional de Estadísticas), there are 244,151 persons born of “foreign” parents in the Dominican Republic; 86 per cent of these are people of Haitian origin. The reconoci.do campaign has taken up the task of collecting testimonies from Dominicans whose legal situation is now in a limbo due to the denationalisation policy of the Dominican government. Below, Deisy Toussaint [fr], a young author, the recipient of numerous national literary prizes, describes how she was not allowed to obtain a passport in order to represent her country at international cultural events: The reconoci.do campaign also has a Twitter presence (@reconoci_do), where it it is in active communication with its followers. On Twitter, the #EsoNoSeHaceRD [You do not do that DR] hashtag has also been created. @Evenelr: Cien años de injusticia no hacen derecho… #EsoNoSeHaceRD — Evenel René (@Evenelr) October 29, 2013 @Evenelr: One hundred years of injustice do not create rights… #EsoNoSeHaceRD Sentencia TC Nos recuerda que: El racismo y la xenofobia son vergüenza para la humanidad #EsoNoSeHaceRD — Juan Castillo (@solojuanrd) October 28, 2013 This Constitutional Court sentence reminds us that: racism and xenophobia are the shame of humanity. Imagínese que un grupo de personas llenas de perjuicios decida que ya no es dominicano/a. ¿Cómo se sentiría? #EsoNoSeHaceRD — Merybell Nabilah (@MerybellNabilah) October 28, 2013 Imagine that a group of people full of prejudice are able to decide who is and isn't Dominican. How would they feel? The international community responded to the Constututional Court's decision with alarm. Chiara Liguori, investigator for Amnesty International in the Caribbean said: Esta última decisión destroza totalmente las vidas de los ciudadanos dominicanos de origen haitiano, especialmente si son obligados a salir del país por el Plan Nacional de Regularización. Es totalmente injusto decir que personas que han vivido como dominicanos durante décadas ya no pertenecen al país ni tienen ningún derecho en él. This recent decision totally destroys the lives of Dominican citizens of Haitian origin, especially if they are forced to leave the country due to the Plan Nacional de Regularización (National Regularization Plan). It is totally unjust to say that people who have lived as Dominicans for decades now no longer belong to the country, nor do they have any rights here. UNICEF (The United Nations Childrens Fund) followed suit in its press release, stating that, long before the Constitutional Court’s decision, it had expressed its concern regarding the large number of children who would be left stripped of all legal protection: En 2008, en las observaciones finales para la República Dominicana, el Comité de los Derechos del Niño señaló que el derecho constitucional de adquirir una nacionalidad por jus solis se negaba frecuentemente a niños que carecían de certificados oficiales de nacimiento o que habían nacido de padres sin residencia oficial en la República Dominicana. El Comité expresó su grave preocupación por el amplio número de niños apátridas que generaba esta política.