[World News]: Paris, Feb 23 : Iceland will grant former American chess champion Bobby Fischer, who is being held in Japan, a special passport that will allow him to travel to Western Europe, Xinhua reports.
Immigration authorities agreed to grant the passport, meant for foreigners, to the former champion who is sought in the US on charges of violating international sanctions against the former Yugoslavia by playing there in 1992.
Lawmakers in Iceland had last week rejected the 61-year-old Fischer's citizenship application, prompting his supporters to apply on his behalf for the special passport.
The document will allow him to travel freely between the 15 West European countries of the passport-free Schengen zone but not to the US, said Gudrun Ogmundsdottir, a member of Iceland's parliament general committee.
Ogmundsdottir said in Reykjavik, the Iceland capital, that Fischer's passport was being processed and would be sent to him in Japan where he was arrested six months ago for trying to board a plane to the Philippines with an invalid US passport.
She hoped the document would allow Japanese authorities to release Fischer. Tokyo wants to deport him to the US.
--Indo-Asian News Service
Originally posted by XanthosNZI thought the statement was about citizen's rights. That is a USA citizen has USA constitutional law legal rights.
I much prefer my British passport. It gives me the right to go and work anywhere in the EU. What would a US passport give me?
Originally posted by gambit3There really is very little appreciable difference in the rights afforded explicitly by the American constitution and the rights afforded largely implicitly by the British constitution.
I thought the statement was about citizen's rights. That is a USA citizen has USA constitutional law legal rights.
The British constitution may not be compiled in a single document, but it definetly exists -- in the Human Rights Act 1998, loads of common law, even in the magna carta...
Originally posted by gambit3This is an misconception shared by many of the 80% of US citizens who have never even owned a passport.
US citizenship rights are better than any other country's rights? Yes or No. For me the answer is Yes.
Personally, I find it amazing that in the US - a country which claims to value individual freedom so highly - its citizens cannot travel where in the world they wish to as individuals, without being hounded to the ends of the earth by their Fatherland and incarcerated therein for many years upon their forced return.
(Anyway, I thought this forum was called 'Only Chess'.)