QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – Despite being 52 years old, Adnan Suleiman, a resident of Qamishli in northeastern Syria, has lived his entire life as one of the Maktumeen al-Qayd — stateless individuals deprived of the most basic civil rights, including identification, education, employment, and legal marriage.
Oct. 5, 2025 marks the 63rd anniversary of the extraordinary census conducted by the Syrian government on Oct. 5, 1962, which stripped more than 300,000 Syrian Kurds of their citizenship.
Deprived of everything
“Since our birthday, we have been stateless,” Suleiman told North Press. “My father used to get us a piece of paper, a ‘certificate of identification’, from the neighborhood mukhtar. That’s how we lived, all the way to this age.”
He recalled that just before the collapse of the former regime, his family tried to complete their citizenship paperwork through a lawyer, but the process was never finalized, saying that the government’s offices are not functioning and they do not know what their fate will be.
Suleiman described life without citizenship as one of constant exclusion: “A stateless person is deprived of everything. When we traveled to Damascus, we couldn’t even stay in a hotel. They would say, ‘Foreigners cannot stay in hotels.’.”
“Whether a stateless person studied or not, his effort was wasted. They were never appointed to any job, not even as a school janitor,” he added.
Unclear future and uncertain policies
Suleiman expressed concern about the lack of clarity in the new government’s policies. “As for the new government, we still don’t know how its system works,” he said. “Maybe we’ll have to start all over again – prepare new documents, pay new fees, hire a lawyer, find witnesses and papers – and in the end, we might or might not get citizenship. All of this costs money we simply don’t have.”
Jwan Isso, a lawyer from Qamishli, told North Press that the roots of this issue go back to the 1962 census. “The Syrian regime issued Legislative Decree No. 93 and rushed through a census with the goal of Arabizing the region and changing its demographics,” he said. “Between 120,000 and 150,000 Kurds were stripped of their citizenship — a clear violation of Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantees everyone the right to a nationality.”
He explained that those affected were divided into two groups — “foreigners” with no defined origin and the Maktumeen al-Qayd, who lack any official civil records and are deprived of all basic rights.
Isso described the census as “discriminatory and exclusionary” emphasizing that recognizing the injustice of denationalization and restoring civil rights to the affected individuals is essential.
Although the Syrian regime issued a decree in 2011 granting citizenship to some of those affected, many remain stateless. “Since the fall of the regime last December and the formation of the transitional government, no authority has yet taken the initiative to resolve the cases of the stateless and those deprived of nationality,” Isso added. “This is a fundamental human rights issue that demands urgent attention.”
The plight of stateless Kurds extends beyond legal documents — it affects their entire social and economic existence. Denied the right to work, study, or move freely, they continue to live on the margins of society, waiting for recognition and justice.
Many now hope that the new government will finally take decisive action to end their decades-long suffering by establishing a clear legal mechanism to restore their citizenship and reintegrate them as full citizens of Syria.
In 1962, the Syrian government carried out a special census in the Kurdish-majority governorate of Hasakah, a measure that would lead to the deprivation of citizenship for tens of thousands of Syrian Kurds. The census, which was conducted on a single day, divided the Kurdish population into two categories: “Ajanib al-Hasakah (foreigners)” and “Maktumeen (stateless)”. Those registered as Ajanib were issued red cards for identification, while the Maktumeen were allocated certificates that identified them as unregistered stateless individuals.
Hasakah was the only Syrian governorate to undergo this special census, conducted under Decree No. 93 of August 23, 1962, which was passed by the so-called Syrian “Separatist Movement,” based on earlier legislation, including Decree No. 1 of April 30, 1962, and Ministerial Decision No. 106 of August 23, 1962. According to the “Al-Hasakah 1962 Census” decree, Article 1 stipulated that the census was to be completed in a single day, with the exact date determined by the Ministry of Planning and the Interior Minister.
By early 2011, the number of registered Ajanib (red card holders) had reached 346,242, with 326,489 obtaining Syrian nationality. However, 19,753 individuals remained stateless. As for the Maktumeen, the number of stateless individuals had reached over 171,300 by 2011. Of these, 50,400 were able to rectify their legal status by becoming Ajanib and eventually obtaining Syrian citizenship. However, some 41,000 Maktumeen faced difficulties with the Personal Status Department during the registration process, and fewer than 5,000 chose not to pursue resolution of their status.
Reporting by Nalin Ali