Statelessness Working Paper Series No. 2017/7 freedoms of expression, assembly, and association. In Turkey, emergency laws have been adopted after an attempted military coup in July 2016. One of the measures was to deprive persons of their nationality if they have been summoned but will not return to Turkey to be subject to investigations. 68 These examples show that measures on deprivation of nationality can be subject to abuse, or that innocent citizens fall victim of this measure affecting the citizenship of all. 6. Conclusion This reflection expressed concerns about the discriminatory character of nationality deprivation measures. States, including the Netherlands, are convinced that deprivation measures are within the boundaries of international law as long as it does not lead to statelessness. The inevitable result is that these measures distinguish between citizens, making the naturalised become second class citizens. It makes citizenship a conditional status for dual nationals and naturalised citizens. Unequal citizenship contributes to destabilising social cohesion. It leads to a divide in society among citizens and it creates suspicion towards those who are ‘different’. As this paper has shown, deprivation measures can be discriminatory on the basis of race or ethnicity if such a measure directly or indirectly targets a specific group of citizens. Making naturalised citizens and citizens with more than one nationality subject to deprivation of nationality can also result into groups of citizens being deemed untrustworthy. Political rhetoric also contributes to deepening the social divide, as it portrays threats of terrorism as something brought from outside, from people who do not share ‘our norms’, justifying denationalisation. It gives a pretence that distinguishing between groups of citizens is normal. Meanwhile, denationalisation as a tool to protect national security has yet to be proven effective. 68 Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, Arbitrary deprivation of nationality and denial of consular services, policy brief, July 2017, http://www.institutesi.org/policy-brief-Turkey-arbitrary-deprivation-of-nationality_2017.pdf. 17