encompass Hathaway’s principles. 266 All in all, the Tribunal does not agree that the limitations placed by the Lebanese authorities on Palestinians for security reasons are based on race, but rather that these are properly justified on the grounds of their statelessness and their practical inability to return.267 Thus, the Tribunal denied recognizing that the Lebanese authorities were engaged in a strategy of discrimination against Palestinians. In a case where the applicant’s nationality was unclear (she was either Ethiopian or Eritrean or both or neither – however her country of former habitual residence was Ethiopia), the UKAIT was not convinced that although significant, the discriminations that she would face upon return to Ethiopia would amount to persecution (or serious harm) because expulsions of persons of Eritrean ethnicity, although still taking place at the time (June 2001), the latest country of origin information did not confirm that these continued ‘to be wide-scale or routine’.268 The Federal Administrative Court of Germany recognizes that denial of citizenship for the reasons stated in Article 10 of the Qualification Directive may constitute persecution within the meaning of Article 1A(2) of the 1951 Refugee Convention together with Article 9 of the Qualification Directive. The Federal Court focuses on the intensity of interference and the resulting exclusion of the person from the material rights of citizenship. 269 The decisive factor for the German Federal Court lies in the exclusion from residency protection; the person is rendered stateless and unprotected; in addition, denial of citizenship must be based on a Convention ground to constitute persecution within the meaning of Article 1A(2) Refugee Convention. 270 Such practical approach may be flagged as good practice, and appears to be similar to that in the US courts which view statelessness as a sufficiently deplorable condition itself to amount to persecution (based on past persecution), even regardless of the consequences of the act of denationalization or of considerations of refusal of entry, provided it occurs on account of a protected ground, such as, ethnicity or membership in a protected group (see discussion below). In Germany still, the High Administrative Court Sachsen-Anhalt found the Refugee Convention ground to be missing in a case involving a stateless Kurd from Syria because ‘a general institutional practice cannot be detected which is aimed against ethnic Kurds in a manner that is relevant to asylum grounds’; any such restrictive practice is not related to ethnicity because ‘not all Kurds living in Syria, which have left the country illegally and want to return, are affected by this denial’.271 Consequently, the denial of re-entry of stateless Kurds from Syria is not considered political persecution. MM and FH (stateless Palestinians) v SSHD, UKAIT, 04 March 2008, reaffirming KK IH HE (Palestinians – Lebanon), para.127. 267 MM and FH (stateless Palestinians), ibid, para.136. 268 YL (Eritrea) v Secretary of State for the Home Department, UKAIT, 30 June 2003, para.41. 269 German Federal Administrative Court, decision of 26 February 2009, 10 C 50.07 (English summary – available on EDAL) 270 Ibid. 271 Germany, High Administrative Court Sachsen-Anhalt, 25 May 2011, 3 L 374/09. 266 47