Syrian Citizenship Disappeared ten years as a porter, which consists mainly in carrying goods between Syria and Turkey.” He explained how, among his circle of friend and family, other stateless were similarly discriminated against: “A relative of mine studied Arabic Literature and another veterinary medicine. But they were not employed as a result of their statelessness.”99 Firas Salim Ali was born in Jernik neighborhood, in Qamishli, in 1980, and is married with three children. All of them are still maktumeen. Firas has submitted his papers to Qamishli’s Personal Status Department in order to get the citizenship but he failed. Facing limited job opportunities, he works as a porter. “To get an ID and be like others is all we want. I do not want my kids to lead a life similar to mine. If I had been a Syrian national, I would not have been a porter.”100 The tribulation of the stateless Kurds is alike. Mahmoud al-Mohammed Bin Ismael was born in 1960, in al-Qahtaniyah/Tirbespî, a town located in al-Hasakah province, and is married with 9 children. He was ajnabi but acquired the Syrian nationality in 2011, too late, considering he was deprived of the career he aimed at: “It is included in my driving license that I am ajnabi. One day, I was offered to be a driver at the firehouse in Rmelan town in al-Hasakah. But when they knew I was stateless, they refused to hire me. A travel agency did the same.”101 99 STJ’s field researcher conducted direct interview with him in Qamishli in March 2018. 100 STJ’s field researcher conducted direct interview with him in Qamishli in March 2018. 101 STJ’s field researcher conducted direct interview with him in Qamishli in March in 2018. 4.15. The Right to Own Property (1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property. Article 17 Universal Declaration of Human Rights The right to own a property is a cornerstone of economic rights. Our study reveals that, deprived of their citizenship, stateless people of Syria are denied this basic right, with significant repercussions on a variety of aspects of their lives. According to our testimonies, not allowed to open a bank account, own basic possessions such as cars or houses and prevented from subscribing to basic services such as phone or internet providers, stateless people rely on friends and relatives to buy such basic items on their behalf, putting them at risk and in a position of dependence. They are also prevented from owning and cultivating lands, a considerable prejudice for their economic empowerment. Lastly, they are forbidden from inheriting any kind of properties, maintaining the discrimination across generations. During its union with Syria, Egypt’s President aspired to apply the Egyptian experience to the northern territory - Syria - in delimiting the agricultural lands. This led to the law 161 of 1958, stipulating expropriation the swaths exceed the delimited land property depending on volume of rainfall in the rain-fed lands and the source of water in the irrigated lands. Land ownership was traditionally unequally distributed in Syria. In 1958, as Syria was part of the United Arab Republic, President Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein introduced, as part of Arab socialism, the agrarian reform law No 161, that provided that no person could possess more than 80 hectares of irrigated land and 300 hectares of rainfed land. Land owned in excess to this limit would be expropriated with compensation and distributed to landless peasants. The unit of measures used in the law, “acres”, opposed to the traditional Syrian dunum, or hectare, demonstrates that, despite impacting Syrian 33