2021 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 3(1) 27,000 political opponents — leaving them stateless. 229 Children of political opponents are still forced to live in exile and denied Syrian citizenship. 230 Historically, denationalisation policies have been largely used to target specific minorities who, despite possessing the citizenship of the country of residence, are considered as foreigners to the community. 231 According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, more than 75% of the world’s stateless population are from minority groups. 232 It is on this basis that the Kurds of Syria were denationalised in 1962, with the stated purpose of identifying ‘illegal migrants’ clearly being a facade. 233 In a response to a report from Human Rights Watch documenting the situation of stateless Kurds in Syria, 234 Syrian authorities argued that, around 1945, many Kurds from Turkey had ‘infiltrated’ Syria. 235 This dehumanising language reflects the disdain of Syrian authorities towards the Kurdish community. 236 All successive Syrian governments have persecuted and discriminated the Kurds, both in the law and in practice. 237 Indeed, history illustrates this strong link between ethnic-based discrimination and citizenship stripping. During World War I, Australia, for example, excluded Japanese citizens from naturalisation because they were considered as ‘ethically undesirable’. 238 In Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, denationalisation procedures were used against political opponents 239 and as part of an ethnic cleansing process targeting homosexuals, the Jewish community and Roma people. 240 Likewise, the recent resurgence of denationalisation procedures within in Europe has been criticised for targeting dual nationals, thereby creating a group of ‘second-class citizens’. 241 Overall, denationalisations practices in Syria should be read in conjunction with anticolonial history, rather than as a simple product of discrimination and arbitrariness. Citizenship stripping was theorised within Europe and introduced in Syria during colonial rule. Moreover, denationalisations practiced by European states have served as a model to the Syrian legislation, in an effort to target citizens deemed ‘undeserving’ of state protection. 229 Manaa (n 62). 230 ibid. 231 Audrey Macklin, ‘The Return of Banishment: Do the New Denationalisation Policies Weaken 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 Citizenship?’ in Rainer Bauböck (ed), Debating Transformations of National Citizenship (Springer Cham 2018) 164. ‘This Is Our Home’: Stateless Minorities and Their Search for Citizenship (Report, UNHCR 2017) <https://www.unhcr.org/ibelong/wpcontent/uploads/UNHCR_EN2_2017IBELONG_Report_ePub.pdf> 1. McGee and Albarazi (n 213) 32. Syria: The Silenced Kurds (Report, Human Rights Watch October 1996) <https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/SYRIA96.pdf> (‘The Silenced Kurds’). Committee on the Rights of the Child, Consideration of Reports Submitted by States Parties under Article 44 of the Convention — Concluding Observations: Syrian Arab Republic, CRC, UN Doc CRC/C/SYR/CO/3-4 (9 February 2012). ‘Yatasalla’luna’ in Arabic can be translated to ‘they infiltrated’. The Silenced Kurds (n 234). Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, ‘Citizenship Stripping in the National Security Context: The Principles on Nationality Deprivation’ (YouTube, 19 March 2020) <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv2znM9_fVk> (‘Citizenship Stripping’). Philip W Bennett and Andreas Peglau, ‘The Nazi Denaturalization of German Emigrants: The Case of Wilhelm Reich’ (2014) German Studies Review. Citizenship Stripping (n 238). Laura van Waas and Sangita Jaghai-Bajulaiye, ‘Stripped of Citizenship, Stripped of Dignity? A Critical Exploration of Nationality Deprivation as a Counter-Terrorism Measure’ in Christophe Paulssen and Martin Scheinin (eds), Human Dignity and Human Security in Times of Terrorism (TMC Asser Press 2020). 30