“I’m not sure banning name changes makes a difference,” said Stephen J. Steinbeiser, Resident Director of the American Institute for Yemeni Studies, based in Sanaa, Yemen’s capital.

“As it is, the government seems to keep tabs as it is on individuals associated with nefarious groups,” he said.

Yemen’s Justice Ministry introduced the ban recently in a move it said would help the government keep track of its citizens.

“With a new name people could escape their responsibilities,” Khalid Al-Dubais, a Yemeni media relations officer, was quoted as saying in the Yemen Times. “If there is an urgent justified need for changing the name, the court will look into it.”

The name change ban follows other recent steps by the Yemeni government to fight against an assortment of insurgents, separatists, and Al- Qaeda. Just last month, Yemeni authorities banned motorcycles in a province where Al-Qaeda had a growing presence, maintaining that militants use them to transport weapons.

The latest order was issued Sept. 19, after a number of Yemeni judges wrote to the Justice Ministry about an increasing number of people filing name-change requests, the Yemen Times reported.

In addition, the country’s Civil and Personal Status Authority had received a number of applications for name-changes on personal ID cards. In a country that honors lineage, some were requesting to alter how their father’s and grandfather’s names appeared on their identity cards.

“It’s meant to give some kind of order to a system of multiple passports and IDs,” Theodore Karasik, director of research and development at the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, a Dubai-based think tank, said.

“This is an attempt by the government to crack down on a number of different groups operating in Yemen,” Karasik said. “The main targets are Al-Qaeda, factions of the southern secessionist movement, and anyone involved with the rebels.”

Steinbeiser said the move could make it harder for individuals on terrorist watch lists to enter and leave the country, but it doesn’t tackle the root causes of Yemen’s terror and instability.

“It’s a complicated question, but I would say that disillusionment, ideological fanaticism, and desperation” are the root causes of Yemen’s instability, Steinbeiser said. “It needs to be addresses at the root, not piecemeal through these types of efforts.” The director of HOOD, a Yemeni human rights organization criticized the move as a step back for civil rights.

“This is an arbitrary step by the government that impinges on people’s civil rights,” said the director, Muhammad Allaw, who is also a former judge and former member of the Yemeni Parliament.

Allaw said that the move highlights the country lack of a population registry.

“In a court, for example, you have to bring two witnesses who will testify you’re the person you say you are,” Allaw said. “It’s unreasonable that in the 21st century a country doesn’t have a central population registry.”

Yemen’s instability has come into increasing focus in the West since last year’s failed plot by Yemen-based members of Al-Qaeda to bomb a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas. The United States has launched a number of strikes this year against Al-Qaeda militants in the country.