Syrian Citizenship Disappeared landowners, the reform was deeply Egyptian.102 This law contrasts with the principle of right to ownership already considered at that time, and since the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a sacred right of the individual, that can be violated only for the public benefit under a law of expropriation for a fair compensation allowance.103 The land reform programme resulted in the ownership of numbers of properties transferred from the individuals to the state. Thus, Ashraf Sino assesses that at least 400 residential property were transferred from their landlords to the Council of al-Darbasiyah city, located in al-Hasakah province. The census was conducted in 1962, one year after the fall of the United Arab Republic. For Mohammed Ali Ibrahim Basha,104 lawyer, depriving the Kurds and the Arabs residing in the Jazira territory from their properties dates back to before 1962, specifically to 1958 and the Agrarian Reform Law, that caused lands of Syrian Kurds particularly to be expropriated as part of the implementation of the Arab Belt Project (in Arabic al-Hizam al-Arabi), a political issue in the first place.105 “To be honest, properties belonging to both Kurd and Arab landlords. 2,400,000 dunum106 of our family’s land, al-Basha, in addition to 3,000,000 dunum of the land owned by al-Meslet, an Arab family, were expropriated and distributed to Arab and Kurd people as usufructuaries. Nonetheless, it is important to mention that other discriminatory projects did take place at the time. A person identified as Mohammed 102 Ammar Oqlah, “the Blaster Arab Belt in Agrarian Reform Law, Right Words for Wrongdoing”, Harmoon Center for Contemporary Studies. March 6, 2017. (last visit August 15, 2018) https://harmoon.org/archives/4273. 103 Ibid 104 Mohammed Ali Ibrahim Basha as Syrian lawyer living in France. He has been a lawyer since 1997, is the Chairman of the Board of Syrian Lawyers Without Borders, the legal council of the Syrian National Insurance Company and attorney at tribunals for more than 400 lawsuits. The interview was conducted on Internet on August 1, 2018. 105 For more information, please read “Agrarian Reform Law- number 161 of 1958, the Syrian Parliament website. (last visit August 15, 2018) http//:parliament.gov.sy/ laws/Law/1958/structure.12_htm. 106 Each dunum equals 1000 m2, i.e. each 1km2 equals 1000 dunum. 34 Talib Hilal conducted a research advising Syrian authorities to adopt several policies against the Kurds. This included forcing their displacement towards the interior provinces, editing the civil registries, preventing them from working, stripping Kurds religious leaders from their status of Sheikhs, creating disputes among Kurds, transforming the border into a military zone, or denying the granting of citizenship to anyone willing to reside in that area, whatever their origins, except to Arabs. The census came as a result of the memorandum, leading tens of thousands denied of their nationality. Ironically, Chief of Staff of the Army Tawfiq Nizam al-Din and my grandfather Mohammed Ismael Ibrahim Basha, a former member of the Parliament lived there. My grandfather became stateless. This stresses the racism of the research and the special census.” Al-Basha also explained that, when the Lake Assad caused large swaths of the land to be submerged by the waters in Raqqa, the authorities compensated local Arabs by distributing the fertile lands it had previously expropriated Kurds landowners from in al-Hasakah, starting from the Iraqi borders to Ras al-Ein/Sari Kani, as a result of the continued implementation of the Arab Belt project in the Jazira region. The 1958 land reform had a long-lasting impact on the distribution of lands. Its implementation required committees to visit and register the whole country’s properties, and was perpetuated even after the fall of the United Arab Republic. Combined with the 1962 census, the consequences on Kurd landowners were appalling. Al Basha adds: “The intended purpose of the applied projects, including the Arab Belt, was to alter the demographics of al-Hasakah province, by diverting the confiscated lands to the Arab community. Practically, after nationality was rescinded from thousands of Syrian Kurds, the former ownerships of Kurds landowners were attributed to others, in the absence of record of the properties under the name of non-Syrian persons. Complaints were referred to the courts for final judg-