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Dear Sir/Madam,My name is Asad Rahji, and I am a 3rd generation Palestinian refugee from Syria. I hold a Travel Document for Palestinian Refugees (1948) and I am registered with UNRWA.I am currently residing in Hungary on a job-seeking residence permit, which is still valid for five more months. However, due to Decree 450/2024, third‑country nationals (except citizens of Georgia, Armenia, and the Philippines) are effectively prevented from obtaining a work permit. This makes it nearly impossible for me to secure legal employment, and my financial resources are almost exhausted. I am at real risk of becoming homeless soon.Returning to Syria is not an option for me due to the current situation there, and also because I belong to a Christian minority, which places me at additional risk.I am considering traveling to Germany to apply for statelessness determination only. I do not wish to apply for asylum, as I have lived my entire life as a stateless refugee a

Hello to everyone Today, I am speaking as a stateless person who has lived for many years in a legal vacuum — and as someone who no longer wants to remain silent.I have experienced statelessness not only as a legal condition, but as a life without a voice. When you have no nationality, no identity, and no clear legal status, you gradually learn to live quietly. You learn not to ask too many questions. You learn not to be visible. You learn that silence feels safer than hope.For many years, this was my life.My wife, my child, and I are stateless. We have never belonged to any country, never been protected by any state, and never lived with legal certainty. Because of statelessness, our lives have been shaped by fear, waiting, and unanswered applications.Through this long and painful experience, I realized something very important:People like me understand each other without needing explanations.Stateless and migrant people often cannot speak

I’ve been reflecting deeply on the core mission here at Statefree specifically the tension between our professional contributions and our legal recognition.In my work with Blue Nile Livery, I spend my days ensuring seamless mobility and "access" for others. It creates a strange, daily irony: I am part of a team that manages high-end transportation and logistical freedom for clients, yet as a stateless person, my own freedom of movement is restricted by a lack of a passport. It’s a constant reminder that you can be "integrated" into the economy and provide a premium service to your community, yet still remain an outsider in the eyes of the state.I’m curious to hear from others in the community: How do you handle the "double life" of professional success versus legal invisibility? Do you find that your professional identity (whether in services like mine or other fields) help

Stateless for Three Generations: Legally Invisible, Alive but UnprotectedIn this image, you see a family. Silent, with their eyes closed…Because there are no words left to explain.We are not a statistic.We are a family that has been made stateless for three generations.We belong to no country, no legal identity, and no future.We are not citizens of any state — but we are human.And this contradiction leaves us alive, yet unprotected, every single day of our lives.In 2002, I was formally recognized as a refugee by UNHCR.Yet this recognition remained only on paper. For 23 years, no identity document, no residence permit, no travel document, and no basic rights were ever granted. My wife was born stateless. My daughter was born into this same invisibility. A child was rendered legally nonexistent from the moment she was born.Statelessness is not our choice.It is a punishment passed down to us.The 1951 Refuge

We, the stateless, carry one of the deepest yet most invisible wounds in the world.This reality is not just a legal deficiency; it is a chronic condition that spreads into every part of life, slowly consuming a person’s spirit, identity, and future. It is a problem that passes from one generation to the next, shaping even the destiny of our children. In society, we often feel like incomplete beings—excluded, unwanted, or less than others.When we walk into a government office or any institution, countless questions rise within us before we even step through the door:“What barrier will I face this time? Which procedure will be denied? Which right of mine will be ignored again?” And unfortunately, the answer is almost always the same:Belittling looks, humiliating treatment, files pushed to the back of shelves with a dismissive “we’ll look at it later”…And many times, we have witne

 At this year’s Statelessness & Innovation: Building Power Through Collective Action conference, one question echoed through the auditorium: What does protection look like when it truly works — and who is responsible for making it happen?The session “From Recognition to Rights: The Future of Statelessness Protection in Europe” brought together practitioners, advocates, community members, and institutional actors from Germany, the Netherlands, Czechia, and across Europe. What emerged was not just a comparative overview of systems, but a sharper understanding of why so many people remain unprotected — and what it will take to change that. The Centra

What is the relationship between citizenship and nationality in relation to insecurity 

Today, I spent a long time holding my phone. After a while, my eyes got tired and I fell asleep. Recently, I also dreamed about my mother, father, and all my family who have been separated. But this time, I had a different dream. In this dream, I was busy with my phone for a long time; I kept checking all my social media accounts over and over again. I was trying to see who cared about my life and my story, who had looked into our situation, who had found a solution to our statelessness — I was following the whole world from every corner. But I couldn’t see any definite solution or connection for our situation.At that moment, my wife came to me again and asked, “Is there any news?” I said, “There is no news at all, still no one has found a solution for us.” She asked again, “I wish there was a way out, at least for our little daughter...” Right then, I felt a pain in my heart and ran outside. I saw so many doors, all together. The doors were very old; some of them were wooden

Did you know that 117.935 people are affected by statelessness in Germany? At the end of 2020, the German Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) counted 26.445 stateless people and another 91.490 people with an unclear nationality. These numbers have been on the rise over the last years; especially the number of people with an ‘unclear nationality’ has increased significantly.

(in german below)I come from Germany and I know people who are stateless.I have learned from these people, what statelessness means.-In everyday life, legally and psychologically.Before that, I knew nothing about the “phenomenon of statelessness” and I suspect that manyother people in Germany don't know anything about it either.That's why I think it's absolutely important to make the issue and the associated problems, burdens and discrimination visible.Do you have any experience of how to make the issue more visible in your own city?(and, actually a minor point: Is it still possible to buy one or more statefree T-Shirts?)  Ich komme aus Deutschland und kenne Menschen, die staatenlos sind.Von diesen Menschen habe ich gelernt, was Staatenlosigkeit bedeutet.-Im Alltag, rechtlich und psychisch.Davor wußte ich vom “Phänomen Statenlosigkeit” nichts und ich vermute, vieleandere Menschen

Thank you for creating this space.We are Anna and Yuri, stateless siblings born in the former Soviet Union. We moved to Israel in the 1990s, but were never granted citizenship there. We've now been living in Malta for over 22 years under temporary humanitarian protection.Every year, we have to renew our documents just to prove we exist, our residence cards, work permits, even our alien passports that only allow limited travel within the EU. We’ve never had a nationality. We’ve faced rejection, legal invisibility, and countless humiliations, and we’re now finally speaking up and asking for help.It gives us hope to see a community like this. If anyone here has gone through something similar, we would love to connect and exchange experiences. Thank you for making this space feel less lonely. 💛

Hi, I am Susanne, member of a citizens' initiative in Hamburg and supporting a person from Bhutan who does not have any identification documents, which is causing difficulties with their residence status in Germany. Has anyone had any experience with this? We need proof that the country does not issue documents, or we need to credibly demonstrate this. Thank you for your help!

Dear Statefree-Community, we are four Master's students at the University of Hamburg, majoring in Criminology and Sociology. As part of a research project with the working title: “Experiences of Statelessness Among Palestinians in Germany,” we are investigating the experiences of individuals of Palestinian origin living in Germany regarding statelessness.With our study we hope to contribute to a scientific topic that is still significantly underrepresented in society as well as in academia and, in our opinion, deserves more attention.For our study, we are looking for interview partners who live in Germany and are affected by statelessness due to their Palestinian origin.  Who we are looking forWe are interested in perspectives from people who are officially considered 'stateless' (XXA) as well as from people whose nationality is regarded as 'unresolved' (XXX) by the German authorities.

Hello everyone Im stateless I live in Kuwait I do look forward to seek asylum in eu country’s but I can’t get my travel documents so here’s my question to the stateless community: how did you get a travel documents?

Liebe Community, ich bin Mascha und Teil des diesjährigen Jahrgangs des Mentoringprogramms der Neuen Deutschen Medienmacher:innen. Da es mir ein großes Anliegen ist staatenlose Menschen zu supporten, palästinensischen Stimmen Gehör zu verleihen und so meine Solidarität (auch als Jüdin) auszudrücken, würde ich sehr gerne einen Artikel schreiben, der all diese Komponenten bündelt. Daher würde ich mich sehr freuen, wenn eine Person, die ebenfalls diese und weitere Eigenschaften hat, sich bei mir meldet und wir uns im Rahmen des eignen Wohlbefindens austauschen könnten. Würde mich sehr freuen. <3