title: Monk

text: The various profession rites are normally performed by the Abbot, but if the abbot has not been ordained a priest, or if the monastic community is a convent, a hieromonk will perform the service. The abbot or hieromonk who performs a tonsure must be of at least the rank he is tonsuring into. In other words, only a hieromonk who has been tonsured into the Great Schema may himself tonsure a Schemamonk. A bishop, however, may tonsure into any rank, regardless of his own.


title: Monk

text: "Novice" (Church Slavonic: "Poslushnik"), lit. "one under obedience"—Those wishing to join a monastery begin their lives as novices. After coming to the monastery and living as a guest for not less than three days, the revered abbot or abbess may bless the candidate to become a novice. There is no formal ceremony for the clothing of a novice, he or she simply receives permission to wear the clothing of a novice. In the Eastern monastic tradition, novices may or may not dress in the black inner cassock (Greek: "Anterion", "Eisorasson"; Church Slavonic: "Podriasnik") and wear the soft monastic hat (Greek: "Skoufos", Church Slavonic: "Skufia"), depending on the tradition of the local community, and in accordance to the abbot's directives. The inner-cassock and the skoufos are the first part of the Eastern Orthodox monastic habit. In some communities, the novice also wears the leather belt. He is also given a prayer rope and instructed in the use of the Jesus Prayer. If a novice chooses to leave during the period of the novitiate, no penalty is incurred. He may also be asked to leave at any time if his behaviour does not conform to the monastic life, or if the superior discerns that he is not called to monasticism. When the abbot or abbess deems the novice ready, he is asked if he wishes to join the monastery. Some, out of humility, will choose to remain novices all their lives. Every stage of the monastic life must be entered into voluntarily.


title: Monk

text: "Rassophore" (Church Slavonic: "Ryassofor"), lit. "Robe-bearer"—If the novice continues on to become a monk, he is clothed in the first degree of monasticism at a formal service known as the Tonsure. Although there are no formal vows made at this point, the candidate is normally required to affirm his commitment to persevere in the monastic life. The abbot will then perform the tonsure, cutting a small amount of hair from four spots on the head, forming a cross. He is then given the outer cassock (Greek: "Rasson", "Exorasson", or "Mandorasson"; Church Slavonic: "Ryassa")—an outer robe with wide sleeves, something like the cowl used in the West, but without a hood—from which the name of Rassophore is derived. He is also given a brimless hat with a veil, known as a klobuk, and a leather belt is fastened around his waist. His habit is usually black, signifying that he is now dead to the world, and he receives a new name. Although the Rassophore does not make formal vows, he is still morally obligated to continue in the monastic estate for the rest of his life. Some will remain Rassophores permanently without going on to the higher degrees.


title: Monk

text: "Stavrophore" (Church Slavonic: "Krestonosets"), lit. "Cross-bearer"—The next level for Eastern monastics takes place some years after the first tonsure when the abbot feels the monk has reached an appropriate level of discipline, dedication, and humility. This degree is also known as the "Little Schema", and is considered to be a "betrothal" to the Great Schema. At this stage, the monk makes formal vows of stability, chastity, obedience and poverty. Then he is tonsured and clothed in the habit, which in addition to that worn by the Rassophore, includes the "paramandyas" (Church Slavonic: "paraman"), a piece of square cloth worn on the back, embroidered with the instruments of the Passion (see picture above), and connected by ties to a wooden cross worn over the heart. The paramandyas represents the yoke of Christ. Because of this addition he is now called "Stavrophore", or "Cross-bearer". He is also given a wooden hand cross (or "profession cross"), which he should keep in his icon corner, and a beeswax candle, symbolic of monastic vigilance the sacrificing of himself for God. He will be buried holding the cross, and the candle will be burned at his funeral. In the Slavic practice, the Stavrophore also wears the monastic mantle. The rasson (outer robe) worn by the Stavrophore is more ample than that worn by the Rassophore. The abbot increases the Stavrophore monk's prayer rule, allows a more strict personal ascetic practice, and gives the monk more responsibility.


title: Monk

text: "Great Schema" (Greek: "Megaloschemos", Church Slavonic: "Skhimnik")—Monks whose abbot feels they have reached a high level of spiritual excellence reach the final stage, called the Great Schema. The tonsure of a Schemamonk follows the same format as the Stavrophore, and he makes the same vows and is tonsured in the same manner. But in addition to all the garments worn by the Stavrophore, he is given the "Analavos" (Church Slavonic: "Analav") which is the article of monastic vesture emblematic of the Great Schema. For this reason, the analavos itself is sometimes called the "Great Schema". The analavos comes down in the front and the back, somewhat like the scapular in Western monasticism, although the two garments are probably not related. It is often intricately embroidered with the instruments of the Passion and the Trisagion (the angelic hymn). The Greek form does not have a hood, the Slavic form has a hood and lappets on the shoulders, so that the garment forms a large cross covering the monk's shoulders, chest, and back. Another piece added is the "Polystavrion" or "Many Crosses", which consists of a cord with a number of small crosses plaited into it. The polystavrion forms a yoke around the monk and serves to hold the analavos in place, and reminds the monastic that he is bound to Christ and that his arms are no longer fit for worldly activities, but that he must labor only for the Kingdom of Heaven. Among the Greeks, the mantle is added at this stage. The paramandyas of the Megaloschemos is larger than that of the Stavrophore, and if he wears the klobuk, it is of a distinctive thimble shape, called a "koukoulion", the veil of which is usually embroidered with crosses. In some monastic traditions the Great Schema is only given to monks and nuns on their death bed, while in others they may be elevated after as little as 25 years of service.


title: Monk

text: Eastern Orthodox monks are addressed as "Father" even if they are not priests; but when conversing among themselves, monks will often address one another as "Brother". Novices are always referred to as "Brother". Among the Greeks, old monks are often called "Gheronda", or "Elder", out of respect for their dedication. In the Slavic tradition, the title of Elder (Church Slavonic: "Starets") is normally reserved for those who are of an advanced spiritual life, and who serve as guides to others.


title: Monk

text: For the Eastern Orthodox, "Mother" is the correct term for nuns who have been tonsured Stavrophore or higher. Novices and Rassophores are addressed as "Sister". Nuns live identical ascetic lives to their male counterparts and are therefore also called "monachai" (the feminine plural of "monachos"), and their community is likewise called a monastery.


title: Monk

text: Many (but not all) Eastern Orthodox seminaries are attached to monasteries, combining academic preparation for ordination with participation in the community's life of prayer, and hopefully benefiting from the example and wise counsel of the monks. Bishops are required by the sacred canons of the Eastern Orthodox Church to be chosen from among the monastic clergy. The requirement is specifically that they be monastics, not simply celibate (see clerical celibacy). Monks who have been ordained to the priesthood are called hieromonks (priest-monks); monks who have been ordained to the diaconate are called hierodeacons (deacon-monks). A Schemamonk who is a priest is called a Hieroschemamonk. Most monks are not ordained; a community will normally only present as many candidates for ordination to the bishop as the liturgical needs of the community require.


title: Monk

text: Hinduism has many monastic orders, including the Dashanami Sampradaya ("Tradition of Ten Names") orders established by Adi Shankara as well as Vaishnava orders.


title: Monk

text: Madhvaacharya (Madhvacharya), the Dwaita philosopher, established "ashta matha" (Eight Monasteries). He appointed a monk (called "swamiji" or "swamigalu" in local parlance) for each "matha" or monastery who has the right to worship Madhvacharya's murti of Lord Krishna by rotation. Each matha's swamiji gets a chance to worship after fourteen years. This ritual is called "Paryaya" and has been used also outside his sampradaya, e.g. in Gaudiya Vaisnava Radharamana temple in Vrindavan.


title: Monk

text: Similar in appearance to Buddhist monks, brahmacari monks from the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), or Hare Krishnas as they are popularly known, are the best known Vaishnava monks outside India. They are a common sight in many places around the world. Their appearance—simple saffron "dhoti", shaved head with "sikha", "Tulasi" neckbeads and "tilaka" markings—and social customs ("sadhana") date back many thousands of years to the Vedic era with its "varnasrama" society. This social scheme includes both monastic and lay stages meant for various persons in various stages of life according to their characteristics ("guna") and work ("karma").


title: Monk

text: ISKCON started as a predominantly monastic group but nowadays the majority of members live as lay persons. Many of them, however, spent some time as monks. New persons joining ISKCON as full-time members (living in its centers) first undergo a three-month "Bhakta" training, which includes learning the basics of brahmacari (monastic) life. After that they can decide if they prefer to continue as monks or as married "Grihasthas".


title: Monk

text: Brahmacari older than 50 years (per ISKCON rule) can become "sannyasi". "Sannyasa", a life of full dedication to spiritual pursuits, is the highest stage of life in the "varnasrama" society. It is permanent and one cannot give it up. A Sannyasi is given the title Swami. Older grihastha with grown-up children are traditionally expected to accept "vanaprastha" (celibate retired) life.


title: Monk

text: The role of monastic orders in Indian and now also Western society has to some extent been adapted over the years in accordance with ever-changing social structures.


title: Monk

text: One of the most intense forms of Asceticism can be found in Jainism, one of the world's oldest religions. Jainism encourages fasting, yoga practices, meditation in difficult postures, and other austerities. According to Jains, one's highest goal should be attaining Nirvana or Moksha (i.e., liberation from samsara, the cycle of birth and rebirth). For this, a soul has to be without attachment or self-indulgence. This can be achieved only by the monks and nuns who take five great vows: of non-violence, of truth, of non-stealing, of non-possession and of celibacy.


title: Monk

text: Most of the austerities and ascetic practices can be traced back to Vardhaman Mahavira, the twenty-fourth "fordmaker" or Tirthankara. The Acaranga Sutra, or Book of Good Conduct, is a sacred book within Jainism that discusses the ascetic code of conduct. Other texts that provide insight into conduct of ascetics include Yogashastra by Acharya Hemachandra and Niyamasara by Acharya Kundakunda. Other illustrious Jain works on ascetic conduct are "Oghanijjutti, Pindanijjutti, Cheda Sutta, and Nisiha Suttafee."


title: Monk

text: These three are mentioned is the three lines of the Namokar Mantra. In the Digambara tradition, a junior monk can be a:


title: Monk

text: The Svetambar Terapanthi sect has a new rank of junior monks who are called samana. The nuns are called Aryikas in Digambar tradition and Sadhvi in the Svetambar tradition.


title: Monk

text: Per the Jain vows, the monks and nuns renounce all relations and possessions. Jain ascetics practice complete non-violence. "Ahimsa" is the first and foremost vow of a Jain ascetic. They do not hurt any living being, be it an insect or a human. They carry a special broom to sweep away any insects that may cross their path. Some Jain monks wear a cloth over the mouth to prevent accidental harm to airborne germs and insects. They also do not use electricity as it involves violence. Furthermore, they do not use any devices or machines.


title: Monk

text: As they are without possession and attachment, they travel from city to city, often crossing forests and deserts, and always barefoot. Jain ascetics do not stay in a single place for more than two months to prevent themselves from becoming attached to any location. However, during four months of monsoon (rainy season) known as chaturmaas, they continue to stay in a single place to avoid killing the life forms that thrive during the rains.


title: Monk

text: Jain monks and nuns practice complete celibacy. They do not touch or share a sitting platform with a person of opposite sex.


title: Monk

text: Jain ascetics follow a strict vegetarian diet without root vegetables. Shvetambara monks do not cook food but solicit alms from householders. Digambara monks have only a single meal a day. Neither group will beg for food, but a Jain ascetic may accept a meal from a householder, provided that the latter is pure of mind and body and offers the food of his own volition and in the prescribed manner. During such an encounter, the monk remains standing and eats only a measured amount. Fasting (i.e., abstinence from food and sometimes water) is a routine feature of Jain asceticism. Fasts last for a day or longer, up to a month. Some monks avoid (or limit) medicine or hospitalization due to their careful attention to body.


title: Monk

text: Other austerities include meditation in seated or standing posture near river banks in the cold wind, or meditation atop hills and mountains, especially at noon when the sun is at its fiercest. Such austerities are undertaken according to the physical and mental limits of the individual ascetic. Jain ascetics are (almost) completely without possessions. Some Jains (Shvetambara monks and nuns) own only unstitched white robes (an upper and lower garment) and a bowl used for eating and collecting alms. Male Digambara monks do not wear any clothes and carry nothing with them except a soft broom made of shed peacock feathers (pinchi) and eat from their hands. They sleep on the floor without blankets and sit on special wooden platforms.


title: Monk

text: Every day is spent either in study of scriptures or meditation or teaching to lay people. They stand aloof from worldly matters. Many Jain ascetics take a final vow of Santhara or Sallekhana (i.e., a peaceful and detached death where medicines, food, and water are abandoned). This is done when death is imminent or when a monk feels that he is unable to adhere to his vows on account of advanced age or terminal disease.


title: Gustav Schwarzenegger

text: Gustav Schwarzenegger (17 August 190713 December 1972) was an Austrian police chief (), postal inspector, member of the "Sturmabteilung" (SA), and a military police officer. He was the father of Arnold Schwarzenegger.


title: Gustav Schwarzenegger

text: Gustav Schwarzenegger was born in Austria-Hungary, the son of Cecelia (née , 1878–1968) and Karl Schwarzenegger (1872–1927). His patrilineal grandfather, Wenzel Mach, was Czech and came from the village of Chocov near Mladá Vožice. Wenzel had a child out of wedlock with Kunigunde Schwarzenegger, and the child was originally named Carl Mach but later adopted his mother's surname Schwarzenegger.


title: Gustav Schwarzenegger

text: According to documents obtained in 2003 from the Austrian State Archives by the "Los Angeles Times", Schwarzenegger voluntarily applied to join the Austrian National Socialist Party on 1 March 1938, eleven days before the country was annexed. Austria became part of Nazi Germany after being annexed on 12 March 1938. A separate record obtained by the Wiesenthal Center indicates he sought membership before the annexation, but was accepted only in January 1941.


title: Gustav Schwarzenegger

text: Schwarzenegger also applied to become a member of the (SA), the Nazi party's (NSDAP) paramilitary wing, on 1 May 1939, in the early years of the annexation of Austria, at a time when SA membership was declining. The SA had 900,000 members in 1940, down from 4.2 million in 1934. This six-year decline in SA membership was an extended result of the three-day-long purge known as the Night of the Long Knives, a political purge carried out by Adolf Hitler against the SA, seen at that time as too radical and too powerful by senior military and industrial leaders within the Nazi Party.


title: Gustav Schwarzenegger

text: Schwarzenegger had served in the Austrian Army from 1930 to 1937, achieving the rank of section commander, and in 1937, he became a police officer. After enlisting in the in November 1939, Schwarzenegger had gained the appointment of (Company 1st Sergeant) of the , which acted as military police units. He served in Poland, France, Belgium, Ukraine, Lithuania and Russia. His unit was 521 (mot.), part of Panzer Group 4.


title: Gustav Schwarzenegger

text: Wounded in action in Leningrad, Russia, on 22 August 1942, Schwarzenegger was awarded the Iron Cross First and Second Classes for bravery, the Eastern Front Medal, and the Wound Badge; he also received significant medical attention for his injuries. Initially treated at a military hospital in , according to the records, Schwarzenegger also suffered recurring bouts of malaria, which led to his discharge in February 1944. Considered unfit for active duty, he returned to Graz, Austria, where he was assigned to work as a postal inspector.


title: Gustav Schwarzenegger

text: A health registry document describes him as a "calm and reliable person, not particularly outstanding" and assesses his intellect as "average." Ursula Schwarz, a historian at Vienna's Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance, has argued that Schwarzenegger's career was fairly typical for his generation, and that no evidence has emerged directly linking him with participation in war crimes or abuses against civilians. He resumed his police career in 1947.


title: Gustav Schwarzenegger

text: Schwarzenegger married war widow Aurelia "Reli" Jadrny (29 July 19222 August 1998) on 5 October 1945, in , Austria. They later had two sons, and Arnold; died on 20 May 1971 in a car accident while driving alone drunk on a mountain road.


title: Gustav Schwarzenegger

text: Schwarzenegger died of a stroke on 13 December 1972, at the age of 65, in Austria, where he had been transferred as a policeman. While visiting Cemetery in August 1998, where her husband was buried, Aurelia Jadrny Schwarzenegger died of a heart attack at the age of 76; she is buried next to him. Their son, Arnold, stated in the film "Pumping Iron" that he did not attend his father's funeral, but later retracted this, explaining that it was a story he had appropriated from a boxer, to make it appear as though he could prevent his personal life from interfering with his athletic training.


title: Gustav Schwarzenegger

text: News reports about Schwarzenegger's Nazi links first surfaced in 1990, at which time Arnold Schwarzenegger asked the Simon Wiesenthal Center, an organization he had long supported, to research his father's past. The Center found his father's army records and NSDAP party membership, but did not uncover any connection to war crimes or the paramilitary organization, the (SS). Media interest resurfaced when Arnold ran for Governor of California in the state's 2003 recall election.


title: Gustav Schwarzenegger

text: In a 2021 video made in response to the United States Capitol attack, his son Arnold publicly recalled, for the first time, how Gustav was frequently drunk and abusive to his family when Arnold was young. He attributed this behavior to guilt and shame over what Gustav and other Nazis and collaborators had perpetrated or enabled during the war. His son brought up the war's impact on Gustav again in a 2022 video about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in which he urged the Russian soldiers to not "be broken like (his) father" by continuing their invasion.


title: Statelessness

text: In international law, a stateless person is someone who is "not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law". Some stateless people are also refugees. However, not all refugees are stateless, and many people who are stateless have never crossed an international border. On November 12, 2018, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees stated there are about 12 million stateless people in the world.


title: Statelessness

text: Conflicting nationality laws are one of the causes of statelessness. Nationality is usually acquired through one of two modes, although many nations recognize both modes today:


title: Statelessness

text: A person who does not have either parent eligible to pass citizenship by "jus sanguinis" can be stateless at birth if born in a state which does not recognize "jus soli". For instance, a child born outside Canada to two Canadian parents, who were also born outside Canada to Canadian parents, would not be a Canadian citizen, since "jus sanguinis" is only recognized for the first generation in Canada. If the child were born in India and neither parent had Indian citizenship, then the child might be stateless since India confers citizenship only to children born to at least one Indian parent, but would more likely inherit citizenship from a parent.


title: Statelessness

text: Although many states allow the acquisition of nationality through parental descent irrespective of where the child is born, some do not allow female citizens to confer nationality to their children. Women in 27 countries, mostly in Africa and Asia cannot pass their nationality onto their offspring. This can result in statelessness when the father is stateless, unknown, or otherwise unable to confer nationality. Beginning about 2015 there have been changes in favor of sex neutrality in nationality laws in some nations, including reforms in Algeria, Morocco, and Senegal that may inform change elsewhere. For example, Algeria amended its nationality code in 2005 to grant Algerian nationality to children born in or outside Algeria to an Algerian mother or father. Moreover, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women prohibits sex-based discrimination in the conferral of nationality.


title: Statelessness

text: An important measure to prevent statelessness at birth bestows nationality to children born in a territory who would otherwise be stateless. This norm is stipulated in the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness; appears in several regional human rights treaties, including the American Convention on Human Rights, the European Convention on Nationality, and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child; and is implicit in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.


title: Statelessness

text: In most large-scale statelessness situations, statelessness is a result of discrimination. Many states define their body of citizens based on ethnicity, leading to the exclusion of large groups. This violates international laws against discrimination. The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination stated on October 1, 2014, that the "deprivation of citizenship on the basis of race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin is a breach of States' obligations to ensure non-discriminatory enjoyment of the right to nationality".


title: Statelessness

text: In some cases, statelessness is a consequence of state succession. Some people become stateless when their state of nationality ceases to exist, or when the territory on which they live comes under the control of another state. This was the case after the Soviet Union had disintegrated in 1991, and also in the cases of Yugoslavia , East Pakistan and Ethiopia. According to the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs, the Council of Europe Convention on the Avoidance of Statelessness in Relation to State Succession is the only treaty that aims to reduce this problem. Seven states have joined it.


title: Statelessness

text: People may also become stateless as a result of administrative and practical problems, especially when they are from a group whose nationality is questioned. Individuals might be entitled to citizenship but unable to undertake the necessary procedural steps. They may be required to pay excessive fees for documentation proving nationality, to provide documentation that is not available to them, or to meet unrealistic deadlines; or they may face geographic or literacy barriers.


title: Statelessness

text: In disruptive conflict or post-conflict situations, many people find that difficulties in completing simple administrative procedures are exacerbated. Such obstacles may affect the ability of individuals to complete procedures such as birth registration, fundamental to the prevention of statelessness in children. Whilst birth registration alone does not confer citizenship on a child, the documentation of place of birth and parentage is instrumental in proving the link between an individual and a state for the acquisition of nationality. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) estimated in 2013 that 230 million children under the age of 5 have not been registered.


title: Statelessness

text: Not holding proof of nationality—being "undocumented"—is not the same as being stateless, but the lack of identity documents such as a birth certificate can lead to statelessness. Millions of people live, or have lived, their entire lives with no documents, without their nationality ever being questioned.


title: Statelessness

text: If nationality is acquired automatically, the person is a national regardless of documentation status (although in practice, the person may face problems accessing certain rights and services because they are undocumented, not because they are stateless). If registration is required, then the person is not a national until that process has been completed.


title: Statelessness

text: As a practical matter, the longer a person is undocumented, the greater the likelihood that they will end up in a situation where no state recognizes them as a national.


title: Statelessness

text: In rare cases, individuals may become stateless upon renouncing their citizenship (e.g., "world citizen" Garry Davis and, from 1896 to 1901, Albert Einstein, who, in January 1896, at the age of 16, was released from his Württemberg citizenship after, with his father's help, filing a petition to that effect; in February 1901 his application for Swiss citizenship was accepted). People who subscribe to Voluntaryist, Agorist, or some other philosophical, political, or religious beliefs may desire or seek statelessness. Many states do not allow citizens to renounce their nationality unless they acquire another. However, consular officials are unlikely to be familiar with the citizenship laws of all countries, so there may still be situations where renunciation leads to effective statelessness.


title: Statelessness

text: Only states can have nationals, and people of non-state territories may be stateless. This includes for instance residents of occupied territories where statehood never emerged in the first place, has ceased to exist and/or is largely unrecognized. Examples include the Palestinian territories, Western Sahara and Northern Cyprus (depending on the interpretation of what constitutes statehood and sovereignty). People who are recognized to be citizens by the government of an unrecognized country may not consider themselves stateless, but nevertheless may be widely regarded as such especially if other countries refuse to honor passports issued by an unrecognized state.


title: Statelessness

text: While statelessness in some form has existed continuously throughout human history, the international community has only been concerned with its eradication since the middle of the 20th century. In 1954, the United Nations adopted the Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, which provides a framework for the protection of stateless people. Seven years later, the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. In addition, a range of regional and international human rights treaties guarantee a right to nationality, with special protections for certain groups, including stateless persons.


title: Statelessness

text: States bound by the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child are obligated to ensure that every child acquires a nationality. The convention requires states to implement this provision in particular where the child would otherwise be stateless, and in a manner that is in the best interests of the child.


title: Statelessness

text: The status of a person who might be stateless ultimately depends on the viewpoint of the state with respect to the individual or a group of people. In some cases, the state makes its view clear and explicit; in others, its viewpoint is harder to discern. In those cases, one may need to rely on "prima facie" evidence of the view of the state, which in turn may give rise to a presumption of statelessness.


title: Statelessness

text: A stateless nation is an ethnic group or nation that does not possess its own state. The term "stateless" implies that the group "should have" such a state (country). The term was coined in 1983 by political scientist Jacques Leruez in his book "L'Écosse, une nation sans État" about the peculiar position of Scotland within the British state. It was later adopted and popularized by Scottish scholars such as David McCrone, Michael Keating and T. M. Devine. A notable contemporary example of a stateless nation is the Kurds. The Kurdish population is estimated to be between 30 and 45 million, but they do not have a recognised sovereign state. Members of stateless nations are often not necessarily personally stateless as individuals, as they are frequently recognised as citizens of one or more recognized state(s).


title: Statelessness

text: In a historical sense, statelessness could reasonably be considered to be the default human condition that existed universally from the evolution of human species to the emergence of the first human civilizations. Historically in every inhabited region on Earth, prior the emergence of states as polities humans organized into tribal groups. In the absence of written laws, people living in tribal settings were typically expected to adhere to tribal customs and owed allegiance to their tribe and/or tribal leaders. As states began to form, a distinction developed between those who had some form of legal attachment to a more complex polity recognized to be a state in contrast to those who did not. The latter, often living in tribes and in regions not yet organized into and/or conquered by more powerful states, would widely be considered to be stateless in a modern sense. Historically, there is considerable correlation between those who would meet the modern definition of statelessness and those the contemporary ruling classes of the extant states would have deemed to be mere barbarians.


title: Statelessness

text: However, civilizations of this period more often distinguished between a subject and a slave as opposed to between a citizen and a subject. In many monarchies, the concept of citizenship as something distinct from that of a subject did not exist – people under a monarch's rule who were considered subjects typically enjoyed more rights than a slave, and would presumably not have been considered "stateless" by the monarch. But even slaves in a monarchical state were often considered to have a legal status more desirable, at least from the perspective of the ruler, compared to those living outside the frontiers in tribal settings who were typically regarded as barbarians. Depending on the circumstances, a monarch seeking to conquer a frontier region would seek to either "subjugate" or "enslave" the inhabitants, but either would impart on the conquered population a change from stateless barbarian to some form of legal status in which allegiance and/or obedience to the ruler could be expected.


title: Statelessness

text: With the emergence of the concept of citizenship in the Greco-Roman world, the status of slaves and inhabitants of conquered territories during Classical antiquity became in some ways analogous to contemporary statelessness. In antiquity, such "statelessness" affected captive and subject populations denied full citizenship, including those enslaved (e.g., conquered populations excluded from Roman citizenship, such as the Gauls immediately following the Gallic Wars, or the Israelites under Babylonian captivity). However, there was a major difference between captive and subject populations in contrast to those living outside the boundaries of cohesive states – while both could be considered stateless, the latter typically only needed to adhere to local tribal customs whereas the former were not only expected to obey the laws of the state they were living in, but were often subjected to laws not imposed on and punishments not inflicted on full citizens. Among the more widely-known examples of this was the Romans' frequent use of crucifixion to punish Roman subjects, considered to be a highly degrading form of capital punishment that could not legally be inflicted on Roman citizens.


title: Statelessness

text: Some characteristics of statelessness could be observed among apostates and slaves in Islamic society (the former shunned for rejecting their religious birth identity, the latter having been separated from that identity and subsumed into an underclass). Statelessness also used to characterize the Romani people, whose traditional nomadic lifestyles meant that they traveled across lands claimed by others.


title: Statelessness

text: The Nansen International Office for Refugees was an international organization of the League of Nations in charge of refugees from 1930 to 1939. It received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1938. Nansen passports, designed in 1922 by founder Fridtjof Nansen, were internationally recognized identity cards issued to stateless refugees. In 1942, they were honored by governments in 52 countries.


title: Statelessness

text: Many Jews became stateless before and during the Holocaust, because the Nuremberg laws of 1935 stripped them of their German citizenship.


title: Statelessness

text: The United Nations (UN) was set up in 1945, immediately after the end of World War II. From its inception, the UN had to deal with the mass atrocities of the war, including the huge refugee populations across Europe. To address the nationality and legal status of these refugees, the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) requested that the UN Secretary-General carry out a study of statelessness in 1948.


title: Statelessness

text: In 1948, the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted. It provided both a right to asylum (Article 14) and a right to nationality (Article 15). The declaration also expressly prohibited arbitrary deprivation of nationality, which had affected many of the wartime refugees.


title: Statelessness

text: In 1949, the International Law Commission put "Nationality, including statelessness", on its list of topics of international law provisionally selected for codification. In 1950, at the behest of ECOSOC, that item was given priority, and ECOSOC appointed an ad hoc Committee on Refugees and Stateless People to draft a convention. A treaty on refugees was prepared with a draft protocol addressing the status of stateless persons.


title: Statelessness

text: The Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees was adopted on July 28, 1951. As of January 2005, it had attracted the signatures of 145 state parties.


title: Statelessness

text: The International Law Commission, at its fifth session in 1953, produced both a Draft Convention on the Elimination of Future Statelessness and a Draft Convention on the Reduction of Future Statelessness. ECOSOC approved both drafts. In 1954, the UN adopted the Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons. This convention provided a definition of a stateless person (which has since become part of customary international law, according to the International Law Commission) and set out a number of rights that stateless persons should enjoy. The convention thus became the basis for an international protection regime for stateless persons. However, to ensure that the rights enumerated in the convention are protected, states need to be able to identify stateless individuals.


title: Statelessness

text: Seven years later, in 1961—only one year after the 1954 convention entered into force—the UN adopted the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.


title: Statelessness

text: In 2014, following a series of expert meetings, UNHCR issued a Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons.


title: Statelessness

text: Stateless refugees covered by the 1951 convention should be treated in accordance with international refugee laws. As of September 1, 2015, 86 states were party to the 1954 convention, up from 65 when UNHCR launched its conventions campaign in 2011.


title: Statelessness

text: On December 13, 1975, the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness entered into force. It provides a number of standards regarding acquisition and loss of nationality, including automatic loss, renunciation, and deprivation of nationality.


title: Statelessness

text: In 1974, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) requested that UNHCR undertake the functions established by the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. While the convention had only 37 state parties on January 1, 2011, 33 states pledged to accede to it at a ministerial event organized by UNHCR in December 2011. As of September 1, 2015, the number of state parties had increased to 64.


title: Statelessness

text: Starting in 1994, the UNHCR Executive Committee (ExCom) and the UNGA asked UNHCR to broaden its activities concerning statelessness to include all states. In 1996, UNHCR was asked by the UNGA to actively promote accessions to the 1954 and 1961 conventions, as well as to provide interested states with technical and advisory services pertaining to the preparation and implementation of nationality legislation.


title: Statelessness

text: An internal evaluation released in 2001 suggested that UNHCR had done little to exercise its mandate on statelessness. Only two individuals were tasked with overseeing work in that area at UNHCR headquarters, though some field officers had been trained to address the issue. The evaluation also noted that there was no dedicated budget line.


title: Statelessness

text: Concerned organisations such as the Open Society Justice Initiative and Refugees International have called for UNHCR to dedicate more human and financial resources to statelessness. In 2006, a statelessness unit (now a statelessness section) was established in Geneva, and staffing has increased both in headquarters and in the field. As part of an overhaul of UNHCR's budget structure in 2010, the budget dedicated to statelessness increased from approximately US$12 million in 2009 to $69.5 million in 2015.


title: Statelessness

text: In addition to regular staff in regional and country offices, UNHCR has regional statelessness officers in Dakar, Senegal, for West Africa; Nairobi, Kenya, for the Horn of Africa; Pretoria, South Africa, for Southern Africa; San José, Costa Rica, for the Americas; Bangkok, Thailand, for Asia and the Pacific; Almaty, Kazakhstan, for Central Asia; Brussels, Belgium, for Europe; and Amman, Jordan, for the Middle East and North Africa.


title: Statelessness

text: In 2004, ExCom instructed UNHCR to pay particular attention to situations of protracted statelessness and to explore, in cooperation with states, measures that would ameliorate and end these situations. In 2006, it provided UNHCR with more specific guidance on how to implement its mandate. The Conclusion on Identification, Prevention and Reduction of Statelessness and Protection of Stateless Persons requires UNHCR to work with governments, other UN agencies, and civil society to address statelessness. UNHCR's activities are currently categorized as identification, prevention, reduction, and protection.


title: Statelessness

text: UNHCR has achieved some success with campaigns to prevent and reduce statelessness among peoples in the Crimean peninsula (Armenians, Crimean Tatars, Germans, and Greeks) who were deported "en masse" at the close of World War II. Another success has been the naturalization of Tajik refugees in Kyrgyzstan, as well as campaigns that have enabled 300,000 Tamils to acquire Sri Lankan citizenship. UNHCR also helped the Czech Republic reduce the large number of stateless persons created when it separated from Slovakia.


title: Statelessness

text: At the beginning of 2006, the UNHCR reported that it had records of 2.4 million stateless persons, and estimated that there were 11 million worldwide. By the end of 2014, UNHCR had identified close to 3.5 million stateless persons in 77 countries and estimated the total number worldwide to be more than 10 million.


title: Statelessness

text: UNHCR does not report refugee populations in its statelessness statistics to avoid double counting, which would affect the total number of "persons of concern". Stateless refugees are counted as refugees, not as stateless. For the same reason, Palestinian refugees under the mandate of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) are not reported in the UNHCR statelessness table. Instead, they are referred to elsewhere in UNHCR's statistical reporting.


title: Statelessness

text: While the two UN conventions on statelessness constitute the primary international framework for the protection of stateless persons and the reduction of statelessness, there are also regional instruments of great importance. The 1997 European Convention on Nationality, for example, has contributed to protecting the rights of stateless persons and provides standards for reducing statelessness in the Council of Europe region. That document emphasizes the need of every person to have a nationality, and seeks to clarify the rights and responsibilities of states in ensuring individual access to a nationality.


title: Statelessness

text: Some of the largest populations of stateless persons are found in Algeria, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominican Republic, India, Kenya, Malaysia, Mauritania, Myanmar, Nepal, Brunei, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Thailand.


title: Statelessness

text: Some stateless people have received widespread public attention in airports due to their status as ports of entry.


title: Statelessness

text: One famous case is that of Mehran Karimi Nasseri, who lived in Charles de Gaulle Airport in France for approximately 18 years after he was denied entry to the country. He appeared to have no nationality, as his Iranian citizenship was taken away from him. He had a British mother, but he still did not have British citizenship. The 1994 French film "Tombés du ciel" and the 2004 Tom Hanks American film "The Terminal" are fictional stories inspired by his experiences.


title: Statelessness

text: Countries that restrict multiple nationality often require immigrants who apply for naturalisation to obtain official documentation from their countries of origin proving that they are no longer citizens. In others, including Taiwan, the documentation must be provided prior to the granting of citizenship. During the period between the cancellation of the prior citizenship and the granting of the new citizenship by naturalization, the applicant may be officially stateless. In two cases in Taiwan, Pakistani immigrants applied for naturalization and renounced their Pakistani citizenship. In the interim, the decisions to permit their naturalization as citizens of Taiwan were reversed, leaving them stateless.


title: Statelessness

text: Australia had 37 stateless people in onshore detention, who had been detained for an average of 2 years and 106 days and the longest was 3 years and 250 days. The number of stateless people in offshore detention is unknown. There were a further 57 stateless people living in the community after being approved for a residence determination. In Australia statelessness is not itself a ground for grant of a visa and the person must instead rely upon other grounds, such as being a refugee. Notable cases include:


title: Statelessness

text: Many individuals in Bahrain do not have nationality and they are called Bidoon. A number of people have also had their citizenship revoked and are now stateless; the revocation took place after they criticised the Bahraini government. This situation also occurs in other middle eastern countries.


title: Statelessness

text: Brazil is among the few countries in the world to have in its law the recognition of a stateless person to provide documents to this person as an official citizen of the country. Maha and Souad Mamo, who had lived in Brazil for four years as refugees, were the first stateless persons recognized by the Brazilian state after the creation of the new migration law (Law No. 13,445), which came into force in 2017. The migration law provides protective measures for stateless persons, facilitating the guarantees of social inclusion and simplified naturalization for citizens without a homeland. The legislation follows international conventions of respect for stateless persons and seeks to reduce the number of people in this situation, giving the right to request nationality. Countries having similar laws usually offer stateless persons the access to basic rights such as education and health, while in their documents they are still recognized as stateless with a residence permit. With its law, Brazil offers naturalization, which means that these persons can by all effects become Brazilians. If the stateless persons do not wish to apply for immediate naturalization, they are granted at least definitive residency in the country.


title: Statelessness

text: Many stateless permanent residents live in Brunei. Most have lived on Bruneian soil for generations, but Bruneian nationality is governed by the policy of "jus sanguinis"; the right to hold it comes from blood ties. The government of Brunei has made obtaining citizenship possible, albeit difficult, for stateless persons who have inhabited Brunei for many generations. Requirements include rigorous tests in Malay culture, customs, and language. Stateless permanent residents of Brunei are given an International Certificate of Identity, which allows them to travel overseas. The majority of Brunei's Chinese and Indians are permanent residents who are stateless.


title: Statelessness

text: Holders of International Certificates of Identity can enter Germany and Hungary visa-free for a maximum of 90 days within a 180-day period. In the case of Germany, in theory, for an individual to benefit from the visa exemption, the ICI must be issued under the terms of the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, and it must contain an authorization to return to Brunei with a sufficiently long period of validity.


title: Statelessness

text: Brunei is a signatory to the 1959 Declaration of the Rights of the Child, which states that "the child shall be entitled from his birth to a name and a nationality", but it does not currently follow the guidelines of the convention. The Sultan of Brunei has announced changes that may expedite the process by which stateless persons with permanent residence status sit for citizenship exams.


title: Statelessness

text: An amendment to the Canadian Citizenship Act (S.C. 2008, c. 14, previously Bill C-37) came into effect on April 17, 2009, and changed the rules for the acquisition of foreign-born Canadian citizenship. Individuals born outside Canada can now become Canadian citizens by descent only if at least one of their parents was either a native-born citizen or a naturalised citizen of Canada.


title: Statelessness

text: The new law limits citizenship by descent to one generation born outside Canada. All individuals born within one generation of the native-born or naturalised citizen parent are automatically recognised as Canadian citizens, but second-generation descendants born abroad are no longer citizens of Canada at birth, and such individuals might be stateless if they have no claim to any other citizenship. Since the passage of Bill C-37, this situation has already occurred at least twice:


title: Statelessness

text: Under Bill C-37, the term "native-born" is construed strictly: children born outside of Canada to Canadian government employees working abroad, including diplomats and Canadian Forces personnel, are considered foreign-born.


title: Statelessness

text: The bill was intended to resolve the status of so-called "Lost Canadians"—people who considered themselves Canadians, with undeniable connections to the country, but who had either lost or never been granted citizenship because of the vagaries of the country's previous nationality law.


title: Statelessness

text: An estimated 800,000 Haitians reside in the Dominican Republic. For much of its history, the Dominican Republic had a "jus soli" policy, meaning that all children born in the country, even to undocumented parents, were automatically given citizenship. Most countries in the Western Hemisphere practice this policy, but in June 2013, the Dominican high court amended existing legislation to exclude from "jus soli" citizenship children born "in transit", such as the children of foreign diplomats and "those on their way to another country". Since 2013, the law has been expanded to address the children of non-citizens, such as Haitian migrants who immigrated after 1929.


title: Statelessness

text: Since the passing of the amendment, nearly 200,000 Dominicans of Haitian descent have been stripped of their Dominican citizenship. Without birth certificates, identification, or nationality, they are stateless and living illegally in the Dominican Republic. As of July 2015, according to the International Organization for Migration, about 1,133 individuals had voluntarily or involuntarily relocated to Haiti. By law, many are eligible to apply for naturalised citizenship in either Haiti or the Dominican Republic, but financial, bureaucratic, and discriminatory obstacles have prevented many from doing so.


title: Statelessness

text: Estonia and Latvia, two neighboring European countries, were Russian Empire territories, separated upon independence in 1918, re-merged under Soviet occupation from 1940 until German occupation in 1941 and then again under renewed Soviet Occupation after 1944. When their independence was restored in 1991, citizenship was automatically restored to individuals who had been Latvian citizens prior to June 18, 1940, and their descendants or Estonian citizens prior to June 16, 1940, and their descendants. Citizens of the Soviet Union who had moved to Estonia or Latvia while they were part of the Soviet Union did not receive citizenship automatically in 1991, and neither did their descendants. They had to apply for naturalisation as immigrants, a process that included a knowledge test and a language test in Estonian or Latvian. Children born after Latvia re-established independence (August 21, 1991), to parents who are both non-citizens, are also entitled to citizenship at the request of at least one of the parents.


title: Statelessness

text: These criteria mainly excluded ethnic Russians. Most were unable to pass the language test required. Russia has a visa waiver for stateless persons living in Estonia and Latvia, while Estonian and Latvian citizens need to obtain a visa to enter Russia. These stateless persons can also travel freely within the Schengen area, but they are not permitted to work within the European Union. , more than 267,000 of residents of Latvia, and 91,000 of residents of Estonia, were stateless.


title: Statelessness

text: Article 19 of the Greek Citizenship Code (Law 3370 of 1955) stated: "A person of non-Greek ethnic origin leaving Greece without the intention of returning may be declared as having lost Greek citizenship. This also applies to a person of non-Greek ethnic origin born and domiciled abroad. Minor children living abroad may be declared as having lost Greek citizenship if both their parents, or the surviving parent, have lost it as well." (The Minister of the Interior decides such cases, with the concurring opinion of the Citizenship Council.).


title: Statelessness

text: Article 19 was abolished in 1998, but no provision was established for restoring citizenship to people who had lost it. Interior Minister Alekos Papadopoulos stated that, since the article's introduction in 1955, 60,000 Greeks had lost their citizenship because of it, many of these people moved and adopted the nationality of another country. However, an estimated 300–1,000 people remain stateless in Greece (primarily minorities in Thrace, some of whom never settled abroad) and other former Greek citizens are stateless outside the country (an estimated 1,400 in Turkey and an unknown number elsewhere).


title: Statelessness

text: Stateless individuals in Greece have had difficulty receiving social services like health care and education. Until December 1997, they were denied the protection of the 1954 U.N. Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, which Greece ratified in 1975. Then, as a result of pressure from nongovernmental organizations and minority deputies, around 100 ethnic Turks made stateless under Article 19 received identity documents from Greek authorities in accordance with the 1954 U.N. Convention. In August 1998, Foreign Minister Theodoros Pangalos stated that within a year, most or all stateless persons living in Greece would be offered Greek citizenship; this promise was repeated in subsequent months by Alternate and Deputy Foreign Ministers George Papandreou and Giannos Kranidiotis. However, the government took no steps to carry out this promise.


title: Statelessness

text: From the mid-1950s until 1998, the Greek government used Article 19 to discriminate not only against the Turkish ethnic minority in Western Thrace, but also against emigrants to Turkey itself. The dispute over Cyprus between Greece and Turkey further exacerbated the problem, and tens of thousands of Greek citizens lost their nationality arbitrarily, sometimes while they were simply visiting Turkey on holiday.


title: Statelessness

text: The law was repealed in 1998, but not retroactively (i.e., those who had been affected did not have their citizenship automatically restored). Human rights groups and the United Nations have since helped many to regain their citizenship, but not without long struggles. Many stateless residents of Greece have had their nationality restored, but others have been waiting for decades, unable to re-enter the country of their birth and sometimes separated from their families in Greece.


title: Statelessness

text: Hong Kong, as a special administrative region of China, does not have its own citizenship laws. The right of abode is the status that allows unrestricted right to live, work, vote and to host most public office in Hong Kong; persons with right of abode in Hong Kong are called permanent residents. Most permanent residents of Chinese descent are Chinese citizens as provided by the Chinese nationality law. Citizens of other countries who have obtained right of abode in Hong Kong remain the citizens of their respective countries, and enjoy all the rights accorded to permanent residents except for those restricted to permanent residents with Chinese citizenship, such as the right to a HKSAR passport and the eligibility to be elected as the Chief Executive.


title: Statelessness

text: When Hong Kong was transferred from the United Kingdom to China on July 1, 1997, all British Dependent Territories citizens (BDTCs) connected to Hong Kong lost their British nationality, unless they had applied for the British National (Overseas) (BN(O)) status. Most BDTCs of Chinese descent became Chinese citizens. BDTCs who did not become Chinese citizens and did not apply for BN(O) status while holding no other citizenship became British Overseas citizens (BOCs). As BN(O) and BOC statuses do not provide right of abode in the United Kingdom, BN(O)s and BOCs of non-Chinese descent who do not hold any other citizenship are "de facto" stateless. However, British nationality law allows BN(O)s and BOCs who are otherwise stateless to register for full British citizenship. In addition, the Chinese nationality law as applied in Hong Kong provides the option of naturalisation as a Chinese national.


title: Statelessness

text: Chinese citizens from the mainland who had migrated to Hong Kong on a One-way Permit lose their mainland hukou (household registration). They then must reside in Hong Kong for 7 years before gaining the right of abode in Hong Kong. Therefore, persons who had migrated out of the mainland but have not obtained Hong Kong permanent residency, while technically not stateless, are unable to exercise rights and privileges associated with citizenship in either the mainland or Hong Kong.


title: Statelessness

text: Stateless permanent residents of Hong Kong and Chinese migrants without right of abode may apply for a Hong Kong Document of Identity for Visa Purposes, which allows them to travel overseas. This document (with few exceptions) requires the holder to apply for and receive a travel visa prior to departure from Hong Kong.


title: Statelessness

text: Children born to foreign domestic workers are not classified as citizens because Chinese nationality is determined by blood ties. Under the visa regulations governing foreign domestic workers, the government of Hong Kong may award an unconditional stay visa. Many of these children can obtain citizenship in their parents' country of birth. When they are put up for adoption, however, citizenship applications can become challenging. In cases where both adoptive parents are Chinese nationals, the children will likely remain stateless. Applying for Chinese citizenship by naturalisation is only possible for permanent residents of Hong Kong, and an unconditional stay visa does not grant this status.


title: Statelessness

text: Eliana Rubashkyn, a transgender woman and refugee, became "de facto" stateless in 2013 after being detained for over eight months on the grounds that her appearance did not match her passport photo. She suffered mistreatment in detention at Chek Lap Kok Airport and in Kowloon's Queen Elizabeth Hospital. She was granted refugee status, but Hong Kong did not recognize her as a refugee because it is not a signatory to the refugee convention of 1951 and sought to deport her to Colombia. In 2013, the UN sought a third country to resettle her due to the lack of protections for LGBT people and refugees in Hong Kong. After almost one year, a UN declaration recognized her as a woman under international law, and she was sent to New Zealand, where she received asylum.


title: Statelessness

text: As of 2012, India and Pakistan were each holding several hundred prisoners from the other for violations like trespass or visa overstay, often with accusations of espionage. Some of these prisoners have been denied citizenship in both countries, leaving them stateless. In Pakistani law, if one leaves the country for more than seven years without any registration from a Pakistani embassy or foreign mission of any country, they lose Pakistani citizenship.


title: Statelessness

text: In 2012, the BBC reported on the case of Muhammad Idrees, who lived in Pakistan and had been held under Indian police control for approximately 13 years for overstaying his 15-day visa by 2–3 days after seeing his ill parents in 1999. He spent much of those 13 years in prison waiting for a hearing, sometimes homeless or living with volunteer families. Both states denied him citizenship.


title: Statelessness

text: The BBC linked these problems to the political atmosphere caused by the Kashmir conflict. The Indian People's Union for Civil Liberties told the BBC it had worked on hundreds of cases with similar features. It called Idrees' case a "violation of all human rights, national and international laws", adding, "Everybody has a right to a nation." The Indian Human Rights Law Network blamed "officials in the home department" and slow courts, and called the case a "miscarriage of justice, a shocking case".


title: Statelessness

text: In Bangladesh, about 300,000–500,000 Bihari people (also known as Stranded Pakistanis in Bangladesh) were rendered stateless when Bangladesh seceded from Pakistan in 1971. Bangladesh refused to consider them citizens because of their support for Pakistan in the Bangladesh Liberation War while Pakistan insisted that since Bangladesh was successor state of East Pakistan, she had a responsibility to absorb the Bihari people into her nation as West Pakistan had done with refugees flooding from the war, including Bengali people. As a result, the Bihari people became stateless.


title: Statelessness

text: Over 100,000 Bhutanese refugees, who have neither Bhutanese nor Nepalese citizenship, reside in Nepal.


title: Statelessness

text: In February 2020, the Indonesia government stated that any Indonesian national who ever joined the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) had automatically lost their Indonesian citizenship. Presidential Chief of Staff Moeldoko stated that the ISIL sympathizers "are stateless". Article 23 of Indonesian nationality law states that Indonesian nationals can lose their citizenship after, among other things, "joining a foreign military or taking an oath of allegiance to another country".


title: Statelessness

text: When Japan lost control over Korea in 1945, those Koreans who remained in Japan received Chōsen-seki, a designation of nationality that did not actually grant them citizenship. Roughly half of these people later received South Korean citizenship. The other half were affiliated with North Korea, which is unrecognized by Japan, and they are legally stateless. Practically speaking, they mostly hold North Korean citizenship (albeit meaningless in Japan, their country of residence) and may repatriate there, and under Japanese law, they are treated as foreign nationals and given the full privileges entitled to that class. In 2010, Chōsen-seki holders were banned from South Korea.


title: Statelessness

text: By 2011, close to an estimated 300,000 stateless Kurds were in Syria. While the government's implementation of the 2011 Decree did reduce the number of stateless persons, a significant part of Syria's remaining statelessness problem has now been 'exported' to new geographic and legal contexts with the displacement of affected persons out of the country.


title: Statelessness

text: Kuwait has the largest number of stateless people in the entire region. Most stateless Bedoon of Kuwait belong to the northern tribes, especially the Al-Muntafiq tribal confederation. A minority of stateless Bedoon in Kuwait belong to the 'Ajam community.


title: Statelessness

text: Under the terms of the Kuwait Nationality Law 15/1959, all the Bedoon in Kuwait are eligible for Kuwaiti nationality by naturalization. In practice, it is widely believed that Sunnis of Persian descent or tribal Saudis can readily achieve Kuwaiti naturalization whilst Bedoon of Iraqi tribal ancestry cannot. As a result, many Bedoon in Kuwait feel pressured to hide their background.


title: Statelessness

text: From 1965 until 1985, the Bedoon were treated as Kuwaiti citizens and guaranteed citizenship: they had free access to education, health care and all the other privileges of citizenship. The stateless Bedoon constituted 80-90% of the Kuwaiti Army in the 1970s and 1980s until the Gulf War.


title: Statelessness

text: In 1985 at the height of the Iran–Iraq War, the Bedoon were reclassified as "illegal residents" and denied Kuwaiti citizenship and its accompanying privileges. The Iran–Iraq War threatened Kuwait's internal stability and the authorities feared the sectarian background of the stateless Bedoon. The Bedoon issue in Kuwait "overlaps with historic sensitivities about Iraqi influence inside Kuwait", with many of those denied Kuwaiti nationality being believed to have originated from Iraq.


title: Statelessness

text: In 1985, the then emir, Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, escaped an assassination attempt. After the assassination attempt, the government changed the Bedoon's status from that of legal residents to illegal residents. By 1986, the Bedoon were fully excluded from the same social and economic rights as Kuwaiti citizens.


title: Statelessness

text: Since 1986, the Kuwaiti government has refused to grant any form of documentation to the Bedoon, including birth certificates, death certificates, identity cards, marriage certificates, and driving licences. The Bedoon also face many restrictions in employment, travel and education. They are not permitted to educate their children in state schools and universities.


title: Statelessness

text: In 1995, Human Rights Watch reported that there were 300,000 stateless Bedoon, and this number was formally repeated by the British government.


title: Statelessness

text: According to several human rights organizations, the State of Kuwait is committing ethnic cleansing and genocide against the stateless Bedoon. The Kuwaiti Bedoon crisis resembles the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar. In 1995, it was reported in the British parliament that the Al Sabah ruling family had deported 150,000 stateless Bedoon to refugee camps in the Kuwaiti desert near the Iraqi border with minimal water, insufficient food and no basic shelter, and that they were threatened with death if they returned to their homes in Kuwait City. As a result, many of the stateless Bedoon fled to Iraq, where they remain stateless people even today. The Kuwaiti government also stands accused of attempting to falsify their nationalities in official state documents. There have been reports of forced disappearances and mass graves of Bedoon.


title: Statelessness

text: "The totality of the treatment of the Bedoons amounts to a policy of denationalization of native residents, relegating them to an apartheid-like existence in their own country. The Kuwaiti government policy of harassment and intimidation of the Bedoons and of denying them the right to lawful residence, employment, travel and movement, contravene basic principles of human rights. Denial of citizenship to the Bedoons clearly violates international law. Denying Bedoons the right to petition the courts to challenge governmental decisions regarding their claims to citizenship and lawful residence in the country violates the universal right to due process of law and equality before the law."


title: Statelessness

text: "Of all the human rights atrocities committed by the ruling family in Kuwait, the worst and the greatest is that against the people known as the Bedoons. There are more than 300,000 Bedoons—one third of Kuwait's native population. Half of them—150,000—have been driven into refugee camps in the desert across the Iraqi border by the regime and left there to bake and to rot. The other 150,000 are treated not as second-class or even fifth-class citizens, but not as any sort of citizen. They are bereft of all rights. It is a scandal that almost no one in the world cares a thing about the plight of 300,000 people, 150,000 of them cast out of the land in which they have lived [when] many have lived in the Kuwaiti area for many centuries."


title: Statelessness

text: By 2004, the Bedoon accounted for only 40% of the Kuwaiti Army, a major reduction from their presence in the 1970s and 1980s. In 2013, the UK government estimated that there were 110,729 "documented" Bedoon in Kuwait, without giving a total estimate, but noting that all stateless individuals in Kuwait remain at risk of persecution and human rights breaches. The Bedoon are generally categorized into three groups: stateless tribespeople, stateless police/military and the stateless children of Kuwaiti women who married Bedoon men. According to the Kuwaiti government, there are only 93,000 "documented" Bedoon in Kuwait. In 2018, the Kuwaiti government claimed that it would naturalize up to 4,000 stateless Bedoon per year but this is considered unlikely.


title: Statelessness

text: As of January 2022, there were approximately 3 million Afghans living in Pakistan, around 1.4 million of them are Proof of Registration (PoR) cardholders, approximately 840 000 hold an Afghan Citizen Card (ACC), and an estimated 775 000 are undocumented.


title: Statelessness

text: As of 2021, there are around 700 people of Japanese descent who are considered as stateless. Most of these people are descendants of Japanese fathers who settled in the Philippines in the early 20th century. Due to the outbreak of the World War II, many of these individuals got separated from their fathers who either got enlisted in the Imperial Japanese Army, repatriated to Japan or died during the war. After the war many of them settled in more remote areas of the Philippines and discarded proof of the Japanese nationality as a preventive measure against anti-Japanese retaliatory attacks due to atrocities committed by Japan during the war.


title: Statelessness

text: Most of Qatar's Bedoon are stateless tribesmen from the Ghufrani tribe. In 2005, Qatar stripped the citizenship of over 5,000 members of the tribe. After international outcry, it restored the citizenship of approximately 2,000. Today, there are between 1,200 and 1,500 Bedoon in Qatar.


title: Statelessness

text: In the United Arab Emirates, some stateless people were granted citizenship after many years/decades. Children of a foreign parent were also granted citizenship.


title: Statelessness

text: Palestinians in Lebanon and those in Syria are constitutionally denied citizenship, and are thus stateless.


title: Statelessness

text: After Israel annexed East Jerusalem following the Six-Day War in 1967, Palestinians living there received, along with Israeli permanent residency status, the right to apply for citizenship. Shortly after the offer was made, it was rejected by Arab leaders. Between 1967 and 2007, only 12,000 of the 250,000 Palestinians living in Jerusalem have been granted Israeli citizenship. Since 2007, more have applied, although the majority still reject it. Those who do not have Israeli citizenship are generally stateless.


title: Statelessness

text: Many descendants of Palestinian refugees live permanently in countries of which they would be expected to be citizens, but they are not citizens because that country adheres to the policy of the Arab League in denying citizenship to Palestinians.


title: Statelessness

text: Even though Palestinians living in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip were issued Palestinian passports under the Oslo Accords and Palestinian legal statehood is somewhat widely acknowledged internationally as of 2018, some countries (such as the United States), recognize them as travel documents but do not recognize their citizenship. According to international law, only states can have nationals (meaning citizens), meaning that the remainder states who do not consider Palestine a state implement such policies and deem its holders as 'stateless'.


title: Statelessness

text: Dissidents and other people can have their citizenship revoked. Osama bin Laden was asked to hand in his passport in the 1990s.


title: Statelessness

text: The Rohingya people are minority group in Myanmar (formerly Burma) whose status as citizens of that country, and whose human rights in general, have been severely curtailed by the Burmese government.


title: Statelessness

text: In 1994, Juan Mari Brás, a Puerto Rican lawyer and political historian, renounced his American citizenship before a consular agent in the United States Embassy of Venezuela. In December 1995, his loss of nationality was confirmed by the US Department of State. That same month, he requested that the Puerto Rico State Department furnish him with proof of his Puerto Rican citizenship. The request involved more than just a bureaucratic formality; Mari Brás tested the self-determination of Puerto Rico by trying to become the first Puerto Rican citizen who was not also an American citizen.


title: Statelessness

text: Mari Brás claimed that as a Puerto Rican national born and raised in Puerto Rico, he was clearly a Puerto Rican citizen and therefore had every right to continue to reside, work, and, most importantly, vote in Puerto Rico. The State Department responded promptly, claiming that Puerto Rican citizenship did not exist independent of American citizenship, and in 1998, the department rescinded its recognition of his renunciation of citizenship. The official response to Mari Brás stated that Puerto Rican citizenship existed only as an equivalent to residency. However, the Puerto Rico State Department issues certificates of citizenship to people born outside of Puerto Rico to a Puerto Rican parent, including some people who may have never resided in the territory.


title: Statelessness

text: Following a failed coup in 2016, the Turkish government revoked about 50,000 passports. While most of the people whose passports were revoked were in Turkey at the time, one notable Turkish expatriate affected by this action was NBA player Enes Kanter. He is a vocal critic of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and a public supporter of the Gülen movement, which the government blamed for the coup attempt. Kanter's passport was canceled while he was attempting to travel to the U.S., and he was briefly detained in Romania before being allowed to continue his travel. Turkey issued an arrest warrant against Kanter in May 2017, claiming that he was a member of "an armed terrorist organization." The government's action effectively rendered Kanter stateless, and soon after this incident expressed a desire to seek U.S. citizenship. He then held a U.S. green card, which technically enabled him to travel to and from Canada for games in Toronto. However, in the 2018–19 season, Kanter did not travel with his team to games in London or Toronto because Turkey had requested an Interpol red notice against him. On November 29, 2021, he became a naturalized U.S. citizen, changing his name to Enes Kanter Freedom.


title: Statelessness

text: After the completion of his term, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili moved to Ukraine where he was given citizenship and appointed Governor of Ukraine's Odessa Oblast.<ref name="Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty"></ref> Due to Georgian restrictions on dual nationality, he was stripped of his Georgian citizenship.


title: Statelessness

text: While visiting the U.S. in 2017, Saakashvili's Ukrainian citizenship was revoked by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, leaving Saakashvili stateless. After the election of Volodymyr Zelensky in 2019, Saakashvili's Ukrainian citizenship was restored.


title: Statelessness

text: Different classes in British nationality law have led to situations in which people were considered British subjects but not nationals, or in which people held a British passport without right of abode in the United Kingdom. Examples include British Protected Persons, who are considered British nationals. British nationals (irrespective of the class of nationality) who reside abroad but are not entitled to protection by the British government are "de facto" stateless.


title: Statelessness

text: Many situations that put people at risk of statelessness were resolved after April 30, 2003, when the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act of 2002 came into force. As a result of this act, the United Kingdom gave most people with residual British nationality but no other citizenship the right to register as full British citizens. However, there are still some people who have not been able or willing to register as citizens. Following the publication of a joint UNHCR-Asylum Aid report in 2011, the UK adopted a statelessness determination procedure in 2013.


title: Statelessness

text: In January 2014, the Immigration Bill 2013–14 was introduced to extend the powers of the Home Secretary to deprive a naturalised British citizen of their citizenship, even if that renders the individual stateless, if the Secretary of State is satisfied that the deprivation of citizenship is conducive to the public good because the person "has conducted him or herself in a manner which is seriously prejudicial to the vital interests of the UK." A naturalised British citizen is someone who was not born a British citizen but has become one through the legal process of naturalisation, by which someone with no automatic claim to British citizenship can obtain the same rights and privileges as someone who was born a British citizen.


title: Statelessness

text: The bill was initially blocked by the House of Lords in April 2014. However, the Lords reconsidered their decision in May 2014, and the bill returned to the House of Commons before being set into UK law.


title: Statelessness

text: The United States, which is not a signatory to the 1954 Convention on the Status of Stateless Persons or the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, is one of a small number of countries that allow their citizens to renounce their citizenship even if they do not hold any other. The "Foreign Affairs Manual" instructs State Department employees to make it clear to Americans who will become stateless after renunciation that they may face extreme difficulties (including deportation back to the United States) following their renunciation, but to afford such persons their right to give up citizenship. Former Americans who have voluntarily made themselves stateless include Garry Davis in the beginning years of the United Nations, Thomas Jolley during the Vietnam War, Joel Slater as a political protest in 1987 while believing that he would obtain Australian citizenship, and Mike Gogulski as a political protest in 2008 without attempting to take any other citizenship. The UNHCR published a report on statelessness in the United States in 2012 in which it recommended the establishment of a determination procedure that incorporates a definition of statelessness in accordance with international law to ensure that stateless persons are permitted to reside in the United States.


title: Statelessness

text: The Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution granted citizenship to African American slaves. The Supreme Court ruling in "United States v. Wong Kim Ark" clarified that people born to aliens on US soil were entitled to citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment. However, it excluded Native Americans by defining a citizen as any person born in the US, but only if "subject to the jurisdiction thereof"; this latter clause excluded anyone who was born in tribal nations within the United States, as the Supreme Court ruled in "Elk v. Wilkins" that they are "quasi-foreign nations who deal with Congress using treaties". The Indian Citizenship Act addressed the issue by granting citizenship to America's indigenous peoples.


title: Statelessness

text: UNHCR's responsibilities were initially limited to stateless persons who were refugees, as set out in Paragraph 6(A)(II) of its statute and Article 1(A)(2) of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. They were expanded following the adoption of the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. General Assembly Resolutions 3274 (XXIV) and 31/36 designated UNHCR as the body responsible for examining the cases of persons who claimed the benefit of the 1961 convention and assisting such persons in presenting their claims to the appropriate national authorities. Subsequently, the United Nations General Assembly conferred upon UNHCR a global mandate for the identification, prevention, and reduction of statelessness and for the international protection of stateless persons. This mandate has continued to evolve as the General Assembly has endorsed the conclusions of the UNHCR Executive Committee, notably Executive Committee Conclusion No. 106 of 2006 on the "identification, prevention, and reduction of statelessness and protection of stateless persons".


title: Statelessness

text: As part of the campaign, it published a special report providing a comprehensive overview of statelessness and delving into the human impact of the phenomenon. It also published an open letter addressed to states, urging them to take action. In addition to UNHCR High Commissioner António Guterres, the letter was signed by Angelina Jolie, a UNHCR special envoy; Surin Pitsuwan, former secretary-general of ASEAN; Shirin Ebadi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate; Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu; Barbara Hendricks, a UNHCR honorary lifetime goodwill ambassador; Madeleine Albright, former US secretary of state; Carla Del Ponte, former chief prosecutor of two UN international criminal tribunals; Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein and Louise Arbour, former UN high commissioners for human rights; and Dame Rosalyn Higgins, former president of the International Court of Justice, among others.


title: Statelessness

text: In addition, a "global action plan to end statelessness" was launched following consultation with states, civil society, and international organisations. It sets out a guiding framework of 10 actions that need to be taken to end statelessness by 2024.


title: Statelessness

text: In March 2012, the International Stateless Persons Organisation (ISPO), an international non-governmental organization, was founded by Dr. Fernando Macolor Cruz, a tribal prince and instructor of history and political science at Palawan State University in the Philippines. It aims to provide institutional representation to stateless persons throughout the world through a network of volunteer human rights law practitioners who act as country representatives.


title: Statelessness

text: The Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion is an independent non-profit organisation dedicated to leading an integrated, interdisciplinary response to statelessness. It works on research, analysis, empowerment, advocacy, and awareness globally. It also maintains an online forum on statelessness.


title: Statelessness

text: The European Network on Statelessness, a civil society alliance, was set up to address the problem of 600,000 stateless persons in Europe and to act as a coordinating body and expert resource for organisations across Europe that work with or come into contact with stateless persons.


title: RuPaul's Drag Race (season 7)

text: The seventh season of "RuPaul's Drag Race" began airing on March 2, 2015. RuPaul and Michelle Visage returned as judges, while the space previously occupied by Santino Rice was filled by new additions Ross Mathews and Carson Kressley. Matthews and Kressley were only both present for the season premiere and took turns sharing judging responsibilities. Shawn Morales, a member of the Pit Crew since the third season and Simon Sherry-Wood, a member in the sixth season, did not appear this season and were replaced by Bryce Eilenberg. Like the previous two seasons of "RuPaul's Drag Race", the season featured 14 contestants competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar", a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics and a cash prize of 100,000 dollars. The season premiere debuted with a live and same-day viewership of 350,000, a 20% increase from the previous season. On March 20, 2015, it was announced that LogoTV had given the series an early renewal for an eighth season.


title: RuPaul's Drag Race (season 7)

text: The theme song played during the runway segment every episode was "Sissy That Walk". Season 6 also featured "Sissy That Walk" as a runway song, making Season 7 the only season to reuse a runway song. The song played during the closing credits was "Fly Tonight", both songs from the album "Born Naked".


title: RuPaul's Drag Race (season 7)

text: The winner of the seventh season of "RuPaul's Drag Race" was Violet Chachki, with Ginger Minj and Pearl being the runners-up.


title: RuPaul's Drag Race (season 7)

text: The trailers for this season featured clips of the songs "Geronimo" and "Modern Love", both of the album "Born Naked".


title: RuPaul's Drag Race (season 7)

text: RuPaul Presents: CoverGurlz 2 is a 2015 compilation album by entertainer RuPaul, featuring the season 7 cast of his show "RuPaul's Drag Race". The album was released digitally on February 3, 2015.


title: RuPaul's Drag Race (season 7)

text: Similar to , the compilation consists of 14 covers of songs previously released by RuPaul, performed by all of the RuPaul's Drag Race season seven contestants. It features tracks originally from RuPaul's albums "Born Naked", "Glamazon", "Red Hot", "Starrbooty: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack", "SuperGlam DQ".


title: RuPaul's Drag Race (season 7)

text: All songs were written by RuPaul Charles and Lucian Piane, with the exception of tracks fifteen and sixteen, which were written solely by Charles himself.


title: Soundarya

text: K. S. Sowmya (18 July 1972 – 17 April 2004), better known by her stage name Soundarya, was an Indian actress who worked predominantly in Telugu films and has also worked in Kannada, Tamil, Hindi and Malayalam films. She was regarded as one of the greatest actresses in the history of Telugu Cinema and the most Successful actress after yesteryear's superstar Mahanati Savitri. In 2002, she received the National Film Award for Best Feature Film as a producer for the Kannada film "Dweepa". She has also received Three Nandi Awards, Two Karnataka State Film Awards for Best Actress and Six Filmfare Awards South for her performances in films such as "Ammoru" (1994), "Pavitra Bandham" (1996), "Anthahpuram" (1998), "Raja" (1999), "Doni Saagali" (1998), "Dweepa" (2002) and "Apthamitra" (2004).


title: Soundarya

text: Her father was a Kannada film writer and producer. She discontinued her M.B.B.S. after her first year in Bangalore. Soundarya's birthdate has been reported inconsistently by the media. While some sources indicate the birthdate as 18 July 1972, the others including "The Times of India" stated it to be 18 July 1976. Her actual birthdate is 18 July 1976 as confirmed by her family and also as mentioned on her memorial gravestone.


title: Soundarya

text: Soundarya's first movie was the Kannada film "Baa Nanna Preethisu", directed by S. Siddalingaiah, released in April 1992, immediately followed by "Gandharva" in July 1992. In the same year, she acted in the Telugu movie Raithu Bharatham, with Krishna, directed by Tripuraneni Sriprasad alias Varaprasad. She acted in more than 100 movies, predominantly in Telugu, in a span of 12 years.


title: Soundarya

text: She began with lead roles in Kannada, her mother tongue, and went on to become the most popular actress in Telugu films. Her first film in Telugu was "Rajendrudu Gajendrudu", directed by S. V. Krishna Reddy. Real commercial recognition came to her with "Hello Brother" (1994), directed by E. V. V. Satyanarayana, in which she starred alongside Nagarjuna and Ramya Krishna. She played an award-winning role in "Ammoru", directed by Kodi Ramakrishna, starring alongside Ramya Krishna and Suresh and played the role of "Bhavani", a devotee of Goddess Ammoru. She had eleven releases in 1995.


title: Soundarya

text: In Tamil, she got major acclaim for her debut film "Ponnumani", opposite Karthik and Sivakumar for playing the role of a mentally disabled person.


title: Soundarya

text: According to D. Ramanaidu, the "Most Beautiful Pairs of Telugu cinema" are NTR and Savitri, ANR and Vanisri, Chiranjeevi and Vijayashanti, Daggubati Venkatesh and Soundarya.


title: Soundarya

text: In 1997, she continued her successful run with "Pavitra Bandham", Pelli Chesukundam", Amma Donga", "Maa Aayana Bangaram", "Osi Na Maradala" and "Aaro Pranam", winning acclaim from all over the industry for her performances. She also starred alongside South Indian superstar Rajinikanth in "Arunachalam", which became the highest-grossing film of 1997 in Tamil cinema. This stardom made her come out of the shadow of mainstream heroines and she chose scripts which had a wide potential of performance even alongside big stars which was clearly reflected in her movies. Though the industry regarded her to be the golden hand, as a former director's daughter, she always regarded the success not as a one-man show, but teamwork across 36 departments.


title: Soundarya

text: In 1998 the critical success of "Choodalani Vundi", directed by Gunasekhar, opposite Chiranjeevi took her to the pinnacle. She also starred alongside Kamal Haasan and Prabhudeva in "Kaathala Kaathala" in Tamil in the same year, dubbed in Telugu as "Navvandi Lavvandi", directed by Singeetam Srinivas Rao. "Pelli Peetalu" and "Sri Ramulayya", "Ninne Premistha" in Telugu and "Doni Saagali" in Kannada were commercially successful. "Anthahpuram", directed by Krishna Vamsi, stood as one of the finest performances of Soundarya in her career, winning her a State Nandi Award for Best Actress and also her second consecutive Filmfare Award for Best Actress.


title: Soundarya

text: Her 1999 release "Raja", opposite Venkatesh, was another blockbuster and won her a third Filmfare Award. Her other releases, "Padayappa" opposite Rajinikanth, "Azad" opposite Nagarjuna and "Premaku Velayera", "Premaku Swagatam" and "Arundhati" further solidified her position. In the same year, she starred opposite Amitabh Bachchan in the Hindi movie "Sooryavansham".


title: Soundarya

text: In 2000, she starred in "Annayya", opposite Chiranjeevi, "Jayam Manadera" and "Devi Putrudu" opposite Venkatesh, "Ninne Premistha", opposite Nagarjuna and Srikanth and several others that displayed her acting abilities, such as "Eduruleni Manishi" and "Sri Manjunatha" opposite Chiranjeevi, Arjun Sarja, Ambareesh and Sumalatha and "Narasimha", opposite Rajinikanth and Ramyakrishna, "Pelli Peetalu", "Dongata" and "Nagadevatha". She also made guest appearances in songs - with Akkineni Nageswara Rao in "Mayabazar", directed by Dasari Narayana Rao, in "Adhipathi", with Nagarjuna and in "Shubhalagnam", with Ali. Later after the entry of the next generation, her market was slowed down.


title: Soundarya

text: In 2004 Balakrishna announced the remake of "Nartanasala", and a launch event was held in Hyderabad. Soundarya was signed to play Draupadi but the film was shelved following her death.


title: Soundarya

text: She worked with almost all the top directors, like Dasari Narayana Rao, K. Raghavendra Rao, Singeetam Srinivasa Rao, A. Kodandarami Reddy, Priyadarshan, Girish Kasaravalli, S. V. Krishna Reddy, K. S. Ravikumar, Krishna Vamsi, Kodi Ramakrishna, E. V. V. Satyanarayana, Muthyala Subbaiah, Gunasekhar, P. Vasu, Muppalaneni Shiva, Bharathi Kannan, Sundar C.


title: Soundarya

text: She starred opposite all major actors: with Super star Krishna in 5 movies, Mega star Chiranjeevi in 4 Telugu and 1 Kannada movie, Mohanlal in 1 movie, Nagarjuna in 5 movies, Venkatesh in 8 movies, Jagapathi Babu in 7 movies, Mohan Babu in 5 movies, Rajashekar in 5 movies, Suman in 3 movies, Harikrishna in 2 movies, Srikanth, Saikumar in 5 movies, Rajendra Prasad in 4 movies and Nandamuri Balakrishna in one movie. She has also acted with several other heroes such as Vinod Kumar, Naresh, Suresh, Harish, Abbas, Vineeth, Vadde Naveen, Ramesh Babu, Avinash, Bhanu Chander and J. D. Chakravarthy.


title: Soundarya

text: In Tamil, she collaborated with superstar Rajinikanth for 2 movies, Kamal Haasan for one movie, Karthik for 2 movies, Arjun Sarja for 1 movie, Vijaykanth for 2 movies and Parthiban for 2 movies. She has also acted opposite Vikram, Anand, Rehman, and shared screen space with Shivaji Ganesan in "Padayappa".


title: Soundarya

text: In Kannada, she has acted with Vishunuvardhan, Anant Nag, Ravichandran, Shashikumar, Ramesh Arvind and Avinash. In 1996, she acted in the musical blockbuster "Sipayi", along with Ravichandran and Chiranjeevi, dubbed in Telugu as "Major". In 2002, she received the National Film Award for Best Feature Film (producer) for "Dweepa". She also acted with Ambareesh in "Sri Manjunatha". Her last film was "Apthamitra", a runaway hit starring Vishnuvardhan and Ramesh Arvind. The film won her the Filmfare Award for Best Actress posthumously in 2004.


title: Soundarya

text: Soundarya acted in the Hindi film "Sooryavansham", opposite Amitabh Bachchan. She starred in several Tamil super-hits including "Arunachalam" and "Padayappa" with Rajinikanth and "Kaadhala Kaadhala", with Kamal Haasan. She has acted in the Malayalam film Kilichundan Mampazham, with Mohanlal and Sreenivasan and Yathrakarude Sradhakku with Jayaram.


title: Soundarya

text: Soundarya was about to make her Tv Debut with the successful Tamil Tv series Kolangal, Although she was interested, she was unable to join the crew due to her 2-month contract with the Bharatiya Janata Party to support them during election campaign. So, she was replaced by actress Devyani.


title: Soundarya

text: Soundarya had opened 3 schools for orphaned children in her native village Ganjigunte, in Mulbagal (Kolar). She was known as the only actress in the 90s from South India who had shown keen interest in social service, and had done many voluntary activities to help the Underprivileged. After Soundarya's death, her mother Manjula started more schools and orphanages under the name "Amarsoundarya Vidyalayas" & Amara Soundarya Foundation For Children with special needs in Bangalore.


title: Soundarya

text: On 17 April 2004, Soundarya died in an aircraft crash along with her brother Amarnath while travelling to Karimnagar from Bangalore during an election campaign to support Bharatiya Janata Party, which she had joined that year.


title: Soundarya

text: The aircraft, a Cessna 180, took off at 11:05 a.m. and turned west before crashing on the campus of the Gandhi Krishi Vigyan Kendra of the University of Agricultural Sciences. It had reached only a height of and burst into flames. B. N. Ganapathi, one of the two persons working on the experimental fields of the university, who rushed to the aircraft to save the occupants, said the plane wobbled before the crash.


title: Business Plot

text: The Business Plot (also called the Wall Street Putsch and The White House Putsch) was an alleged political conspiracy in 1933-34 in the United States to overthrow the government of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and install Smedley Butler as dictator. Retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler asserted that wealthy businessmen were plotting to create a fascist veterans' organization with Butler as its leader and use it in a coup d'état to overthrow Roosevelt. In 1934, Butler testified under oath before the United States House of Representatives Special Committee on Un-American Activities (the "McCormack–Dickstein Committee") on these revelations. Although no one was prosecuted, the congressional committee final report said, "there is no question that these attempts were discussed, were planned, and might have been placed in execution when and if the financial backers deemed it expedient."


title: Business Plot

text: Early in the committee's gathering of testimony most major news media dismissed the plot, with a "New York Times" editorial characterizing it as a "gigantic hoax". When the committee's final report was released, the "Times" said the committee "purported to report that a two-month investigation had convinced it that General Butler's story of a Fascist march on Washington was alarmingly true" and "... also alleged that definite proof had been found that the much publicized Fascist march on Washington, which was to have been led by Major Gen. Smedley D. Butler, retired, according to testimony at a hearing, was actually contemplated". The individuals involved all denied the existence of a plot.


title: Business Plot

text: While historians have questioned whether or not a coup was actually close to execution, most agree that some sort of "wild scheme" was contemplated and discussed.


title: Business Plot

text: On July 17, 1932, thousands of World War I veterans converged on Washington, D.C., set up tent camps, and demanded immediate payment of bonuses due to them according to the World War Adjusted Compensation Act of 1924 (which made certain bonuses initially due no earlier than 1925 and all no later than 1945). Walter W. Waters, a former Army sergeant, led this "Bonus Army". It was encouraged by an appearance from retired Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler, a popular military figure of the time. A few days after Butler's arrival, President Herbert Hoover ordered the marchers removed and U.S. Army cavalry troops under the command of Gen. Douglas MacArthur destroyed their camps.


title: Business Plot

text: Butler, although a self-described Republican, responded by supporting Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1932 US presidential election. By 1933, Butler started denouncing capitalism and bankers, going on to explain that for 33 years he had been a "high-class muscle man" for Wall Street, the bankers and big business, labeling himself as a "racketeer for Capitalism".


title: Business Plot

text: Roosevelt's election was upsetting for many conservative businessmen of the time, as his "campaign promise that the government would provide jobs for all the unemployed had the perverse effect of creating a new wave of unemployment by businessmen frightened by fears of socialism and reckless government spending." Some writers have said concerns over the gold standard were also involved; Jules Archer, in "The Plot to Seize the White House", wrote that with the end of the gold standard, "conservative financiers were horrified. They viewed a currency not solidly backed by gold as inflationary, undermining both private and business fortunes and leading to national bankruptcy. Roosevelt was damned as a socialist or Communist out to destroy private enterprise by sapping the gold backing of wealth in order to subsidize the poor."