UAE: Golden Visa 10 years — but almost no citizenship
Only 11% of the population are UAE citizens. No citizenship purchase program and naturalization is extremely rare. Golden Visa is a 10-year residency card …
Syria — Where a 1962 census created stateless people for half a century
In 1962, a special census in Hasakah province stripped hundreds of thousands of Kurds of citizenship. This is an example…
Jordan — citizenship through investment outside the Caribbean region, in the Middle East
Jordan is one of few non-Caribbean countries with investment-based citizenship program. Multiple routes including bank t…
Iran — The country that does not recognize its citizens' second citizenship, with very real consequences
Iran considers people holding dual citizenship as only Iranian citizens, and does not recognize the other citizenship. This may sound like a detail…
Palestine — Where the same ethnic origin leads to six, seven different legal statuses
People of Palestinian origin do not have a common legal status. Depending on where they live, the same lineage can lead to different…
Israel: one of the world's broadest citizenship laws — but only for a specific group
The Law of Return allows Jews along with spouses, children and grandchildren to acquire Israeli citizenship nearly instantly. Outside this group…
Lebanon — A country with diaspora many times larger than its domestic population, and no census since 1932
The number of Lebanese people worldwide far exceeds the domestic population — Brazil alone is said to have many Lebanese origin…
Iraq — Where written law began, and the only case in this library where citizenship was revoked and then restored
This land gave birth to writing and humanity's earliest written code. Four thousand years later, this very place provided an example of…
Yemen — Where two nations once voluntarily merged into one, and where coffee came to the world
In 1990, North Yemen and South Yemen united into one country — one of very few times two independent nations voluntarily merged i…