German officials won't let couple name baby after bin Laden
Associated Press
Published Sep 6, 2002 NAME06
BERLIN -- German authorities have denied a Turkish couple's request to name their newborn son Osama bin Laden, a court spokeswoman said Thursday.
``Osama bin laden is a great man,'' the baby's father, Mehmet Cengiz, an unemployed truck driver, told Germany's RTL television. ``He's a good man for his people, for my culture.''
German laws make it illegal for parents to give their children names that might dishonor them or harm their dignity.
``That could be the case with this name,'' Birgit Neepmann, a spokeswoman for the district court in Cologne, said of the parents' wish to name the boy for the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.
City registrars rejected the name, and the parents of the child, who was born in July, took their case to the district court. If it is rejected there, they can still appeal.
German law allows foreign names if they are accepted in the family's home country, ``but this one couldn't be registered in Turkey either,'' Neepmann said |
