Mos Def arrested in South Africa for 'World Passport.' What's that?

Mos Def was arrested in South Africa for using a 'World Passport,' a document issued by a Washington, D.C., political organization that aims to enact universal human freedom of travel.

|
Matt Sayles/AP/File
Musician Mos Def speaks on a panel discussing Google's new music search in Los Angeles, Oct. 28, 2009. The American entertainer has been charged with using a false identity, using an unrecognized travel document and helping his family stay in the country illegally, a Home Affairs official said Wednesday.

The American rapper Mos Def is under arrest in South Africa for trying to use a controversial document, a "World Passport," in lieu of the usual US passport.

He claims to have broken no laws, but the arrest highlights the debate around the World Passport, which mimics a traditional passport in format and is issued by the World Government of World Citizens.

The Washington, D.C.-based organization operates on the premise that nation-states are less relevant to individual freedom than the "fundamental oneness or unity of the human community." Founded in the 1950s by a World War Two bomber, the organization claims authority to issue passports based on the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states, "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country."

"If freedom of travel is one of the essential marks of the liberated human being, as stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, then the very acceptance of a national passport is the mark of the slave, serf or subject," according to the website.

By this measure, the act of using a World Passport is a "meaningful symbol" toward the goal of universal freedom of travel, the website claims.

However, the passport carries little weight in South Africa, as the rapper, who now goes by the name Yasiin Bey, has learned.

South African officials said Mr. Bey broke the country's immigration law by using the World Passport, and he must appear in court on March 8 after being released on bail. Bey, who was born Dante Smith, rapped in protest.

"I committed no crime. Why is the state wasting my time?" he rapped in a recording on Kanye West's website. "I'll go away. And when I leave, that's exactly where I'll stay."

During the official investigation, South African officials found that Bey has entered South Africa, where he now lives, 10 times using a US passport. His wife and child overstayed their visitor's visas, however, and since their visas expired in April 2014, they have a Jan. 29 deadline to leave the country.

According to a statement, the World Service Authority, the administrative branch of the World Government of World Citizens, said South Africa is obligated to accept a World Passport as a member of the United Nations.

The organization claims that 150 countries have acknowledged the World Passport by stamping it when a person entered or left the country, although only six have granted it official recognition. South Africa has stamped a World Passport five different times, and a recent update on the website offers photo evidence of South Africa's past acceptance.

In the United States, the Air Transport Association specifically used them in training videos beginning in 1991 as an example of incorrect travel documentation, The Washington Post reported. The organization distributes them to refugees and others who hope the document represents a ticket into a new country. Many learn, just as Bey did, that border officials do not accept the document.

This report contains material from the Associated Press.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Mos Def arrested in South Africa for 'World Passport.' What's that?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/2016/0120/Mos-Def-arrested-in-South-Africa-for-World-Passport.-What-s-that
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe