 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(October 2012) |
Honorary citizenship is a status bestowed by a city or other government on a foreign or native individual whom it considers to be especially admirable or otherwise worthy of the distinction. The honour usually is symbolic and does not confer any change to citizenship or nationality.
By act of United States Congress and presidential assent, an individual may be named an honorary citizen of the United States. Since 1963, it has been awarded to only eight individuals.
Honorary Canadian citizenship requires unanimous approval in both houses of Parliament. The only people to ever receive honorary Canadian citizenship are Raoul Wallenberg posthumously in 1985; Nelson Mandela in 2001; the 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso in 2006; Aung San Suu Kyi in 2007 (revoked in 2018); Prince Karim Aga Khan in 2009; and Malala Yousafzai in 2014.
In Germany honorary citizenship is awarded by cities, towns and sometimes federal states. The honorary citizenship is perpetual and persists after the death of the honoree, but can be revoked in exceptional cases by the council or parliament of the city, town, or state. In the case of war criminals, all such honours were taken away by "Article VIII, section II, letter i of the directive 38 of the Allied Control Council for Germany" on 12 October 1946.
In Ireland, honorary citizenship bestowed on a foreigner is full legal citizenship including the right to reside and vote. [1]
Members of the Righteous Among the Nations may be conferred honorary Israeli citizenship by Yad Vashem, or commemorative citizenship if deceased. Those who choose to live in Israel are entitled to a pension, free health care, and assistance with housing and nursing care.
In 2010, legislation was passed by the Knesset to confer honorary Israeli citizenship to all members of the Israeli defense forces and paramilitary organizations that operated in Mandate Palestine who died between 29 November 1947 and 31 December 1948. [2]
Nationality is a legal identification of a person in international law, establishing the person as a subject, a national, of a sovereign state. It affords the state jurisdiction over the person and affords the person the protection of the state against other states.
Gérard Xavier Marcel Depardieu, CQ is a French actor, filmmaker, businessman and vineyard owner since 1989 who is one of the most prolific thespians in film history. He has completed over 250 films since 1967, almost exclusively as a lead. Depardieu has worked with over 150 film directors whose most notable collaborations include Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Maurice Pialat, Alain Resnais, Claude Chabrol, Ridley Scott and Bernardo Bertolucci. He is the second highest grossing actor in the history of French Cinema behind Louis de Funès. As of January 2022, his body of work also include countless television productions, 18 theatre plays, 16 records and 9 books. He is mostly known as a character actor and for having portrayed numerous leading historical and fictitious figures of the Western world including Georges Danton, Joseph Stalin, Honoré de Balzac, Alexandre Dumas, Auguste Rodin, Cyrano de Bergerac, Jean Valjean, Edmond Dantès, Christopher Columbus, Obélix, and Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
Jus soli, commonly referred to as birthright citizenship, is the right of anyone born in the territory of a state to nationality or citizenship.
Raoul Gustaf Wallenberg was a Swedish architect, businessman, diplomat, and humanitarian. He saved thousands of Jews in German-occupied Hungary during the Holocaust from German Nazis and Hungarian fascists during the later stages of World War II. While serving as Sweden's special envoy in Budapest between July and December 1944, Wallenberg issued protective passports and sheltered Jews in buildings he declared as Swedish territory.
Righteous Among the Nations is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis for altruistic reasons. The term originates with the concept of "righteous gentiles", a term used in rabbinic Judaism to refer to non-Jews, called ger toshav, who abide by the Seven Laws of Noah.
General Lucius Dubignon Clay was a senior officer of the United States Army who was known for his administration of occupied Germany after World War II. He served as the deputy to General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1945; deputy military governor, Germany, in 1946; Commander in Chief, United States Forces in Europe and military governor of the United States Zone, Germany, from 1947 to 1949. Clay orchestrated the Berlin Airlift (1948–1949) when the USSR blockaded West Berlin.
Giorgio Perlasca was an Italian businessman and former Fascist who, with the collaboration of official diplomats, posed as the Spanish consul-general to Hungary in the winter of 1944, and saved 5,218 Jews from deportation to Nazi extermination camps in eastern Europe. In 1989, Perlasca was designated by Israel as a Righteous Among the Nations.
Per Johan Valentin Anger was a Swedish diplomat. Anger was Raoul Wallenberg's co-worker at the Swedish legation in Budapest during World War II when many Jews were saved because they were supplied with Swedish passports. After the war, he spent a lot of time trying to clarify Wallenberg's fate.
Tzvi Jacob Avni is an Israeli composer.
Honorary Canadian citizenship is an honour bestowed on foreigners of exceptional merit following a joint resolution by both Houses of the Parliament of Canada.
The Honorary Citizen Award is the highest national honour conferred by the Government of Singapore to foreigners since 2003, to recognise and acknowledge the contributions of foreigners who have contributed extensively and significantly to Singapore and its people.
Kailash Satyarthi is an Indian social reformer who campaigned against child labor in India and advocated the universal right to education. In 2014, he was the co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, along with Malala Yousafzai, "for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education." He is the founder of multiple social activist organizations, including Bachpan Bachao Andolan, Global March Against Child Labour, Global Campaign for Education, Kailash Satyarthi Children's Foundation, and Bal Ashram Trust.
Guillermo Rodriguez, more commonly known as Guillermo, is a Mexican-American talk show personality who rose to fame while working as a parking lot security guard at the Hollywood Boulevard studios for American late night talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live! He continues in character and title as the show's security guard, but actually performs nightly as Jimmy Kimmel's sidekick.
Abdul Rehman Malik NI was a Pakistani politician and a Federal Investigation Agency officer, having served as the Interior Minister from being appointed on 25 March 2008 until 16 March 2013.
Malala Yousafzai is a Pakistani female education activist and the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Awarded when she was 17, she is the world's youngest Nobel Prize laureate, and the second Pakistani and the first Pashtun to receive a Nobel Prize. She is known for human rights advocacy, especially the education of women and children in her native homeland, Swat, where the Pakistani Taliban had at times banned girls from attending school. Her advocacy has grown into an international movement, and according to former Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, she has become Pakistan's "most prominent citizen."
Posthumous citizenship is a form of honorary citizenship granted by countries to immigrants or other foreigners after their deaths.
Media related to Honorary citizenship at Wikimedia Commons Honorary citizenship around the world | |
|---|---|
| Countries | |
| Cities and regions |
|
| See also | |
