Publication date: January 2022
Study Variables of Demographic Identity and How they Affect the Social Fabric, Property Rights, and the Return of Refugees attempts to show the grave effects on large groups of Syrians who, under property laws and regulatory schemes issued by the regime in recent years, are subjected to systematic dispossession of their properties, seizure and confiscation under the guise of the “law”;not to mention the regime, who played the main role in displacement, taking advantage of this situation with an aim to impose solidified realities that prevent property from being restored to their owners, while changing the demographic structure in areas where these properties are located.
In this context, the study seeks to explore risksof changing the urban and demographic identity, and the legal and practical difficulties that property owners face in recovering their properties, with no political solution in sight or serious international pressures to prevent the regime from abusing Syrians’ rights, thereby allowing its continuing policies of displacing millions of Syrians from their homes and lands. Finally, the study covers repercussions of demographic variables and real estate policies on the rights of Syrian refugees, particularly to return to their original places of residence, and it identifies practical difficulties and challenges for their safe and voluntary return to the homeland.
This is done by analyzing the nature of Syrian asylum and factors affecting refugees’ choice to return or choice of other options; and by extrapolating hypotheses relating to the future of refugees based on types of political solutions for the Syrian issue, challenges for a secure environment, paths of political transition, transitional justice, stability and early recovery.
The aim is to form an objective approach to just solutions to the tragedy of Syrian displacement.
