Filed with Key Arguments (MOC) · Related: 60.1 Israel-Palestine · Sources, Books & Media (MOC)

TP1: Apartheid State

Apartheid State — Scholarly and Legal Definition

An apartheid state is a state whose laws, institutions, or official practices establish and maintain an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over another, enforced through serious inhumane or coercive acts, with the purpose or intention of preserving that system of domination.

More precisely, a finding of apartheid generally requires the following elements:

1. Distinct racialized groups

   • The population is divided into groups treated as socially, legally, ethnically, nationally, or ancestrally distinct.
   • “Racial” is not limited to biological race or skin color. In international anti-discrimination law, it can encompass distinctions based on race, color, descent, or national or ethnic origin.

2. Institutionalized domination

   • One group occupies a structurally dominant position over another.
   • The hierarchy is embedded in legislation, government institutions, administrative rules, courts, policing, territorial arrangements, or coordinated state policy.
   • Apartheid is therefore more than private prejudice or isolated misconduct.

3. Systematic oppression

   • The subordinate group experiences an organized and persistent pattern of severe restrictions or disadvantages.
   • These may concern citizenship, voting, political participation, movement, residence, land ownership, employment, education, family life, legal protection, access to resources, or participation in public life.

4. Inhumane or coercive acts

   • The system is maintained through serious acts such as killing, torture, arbitrary imprisonment, forcible transfer, land expropriation, persecution, denial of fundamental rights, restrictions deliberately dividing populations, or the creation of living conditions intended to subordinate a group.

5. Purpose or intention of maintaining domination

   • The discriminatory system must not merely produce unequal results.
   • Its laws, practices, or institutional structure must be designed or knowingly used to establish, preserve, or perpetuate the dominant group’s control over the subordinate group.

What does not automatically constitute apartheid

Apartheid is not synonymous with:

• ordinary discrimination;
• socioeconomic inequality;
• voluntary cultural or religious separation;
• isolated civil-rights violations;
• temporary security measures considered individually;
• every system in which two groups possess different legal statuses.

These conditions may be discriminatory or unlawful without reaching the higher threshold of apartheid. The defining distinction is the combination of institutionalization, systematic oppression, group domination, serious inhumane acts, and an intention to maintain the regime.

Important terminology

“Apartheid state” is primarily a scholarly, political, or descriptive label rather than a separate legal status formally conferred on a country. International law more precisely asks whether:

• an apartheid regime exists;
• particular state policies constitute apartheid;
• state officials or other individuals have committed the crime against humanity of apartheid.

An apartheid regime may operate throughout an entire country or only within a territory under that state’s effective control. A careful analysis should therefore specify the relevant population, territory, institutions, policies, and period rather than assuming that every part of the state functions identically.

Condensed test

Apartheid exists when one racialized group deliberately uses an institutionalized system of serious and systematic oppression to dominate another group and to preserve that domination.

Sources

• Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Article 7(2)(h)
• International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid
• International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, Article 1
• Miles Jackson, “The Definition of Apartheid in Customary International Law”
• Carola Lingaas, “The Crime against Humanity of Apartheid in a Post-Apartheid World”

Myanmar & Bangladesh

The Rohingya are a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority originating primarily from Myanmar’s Rakhine State. They have experienced decades of citizenship denial, movement restrictions, forced displacement, state violence, and institutionalized discrimination.

Their circumstances differ substantially between Myanmar and Bangladesh:

• In Myanmar, major human-rights organizations describe the system imposed on the Rohingya as apartheid.
• In Bangladesh, approximately 1.2 million Rohingya refugees live under a segregated and highly restrictive camp system that has significant apartheid-like characteristics, but Bangladesh has not generally been classified as committing the international crime of apartheid.

Central distinction

Myanmar created the Rohingya’s statelessness, persecution, dispossession, and mass expulsion.
Bangladesh received the refugees but confines most of them to camps, restricts their movement and employment, and denies them a realistic path to integration.
Myanmar’s system is therefore more clearly understood as ethnic domination in the Rohingya homeland, whereas Bangladesh operates a restrictive refugee-containment system.

Who Are the Rohingya?

The Rohingya are an ethnic community with longstanding roots in northern Rakhine State in western Myanmar. They are overwhelmingly Muslim, although a small Rohingya Hindu minority also exists.

Myanmar’s government generally refuses to recognize the Rohingya as one of the country’s official ethnic groups. Officials frequently describe them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, despite generations of Rohingya residence in Myanmar.

The 1982 Myanmar Citizenship Law effectively excluded most Rohingya from full citizenship. This left them stateless and vulnerable to additional restrictions involving:

• movement;
• marriage and family life;
• education;
• employment;
• healthcare;
• land ownership;
• political participation;
• and access to government services.

The Rohingya in Myanmar

Estimated Population

Approximately 500,000 to 600,000 Rohingya remain inside Myanmar, principally in Rakhine State.

Human Rights Watch commonly uses the rounded estimate of approximately 600,000 Rohingya remaining in the country.

Within this population:

• approximately 145,000 live in internally displaced-person camps;
• approximately 355,000 to 455,000 live in towns and villages;
• many remain confined to particular communities or require official permission to travel.

The population estimate is uncertain because of:

• continued armed conflict;
• limited humanitarian access;
• undocumented migration;
• displacement within Myanmar;
• and continuing flight into Bangladesh.

More than one-quarter of the Rohingya who remained following the 2017 mass displacement may have subsequently fled Myanmar after renewed conflict began in November 2023.

Why Myanmar Is Described as Practicing Apartheid

Amnesty International concluded that Myanmar created an institutionalized system of apartheid against the Rohingya in Rakhine State.

The system includes several interconnected components.

Citizenship Denial

Most Rohingya are denied full Myanmar citizenship.

Without citizenship, they lack secure legal status and may be denied:

• national identification;
• voting rights;
• freedom of movement;
• access to higher education;
• public-sector employment;
• secure property rights;
• and equal protection under the law.

The denial of citizenship is central to the apartheid analysis because it legally separates the Rohingya from recognized Myanmar citizens and makes most other restrictions possible.

Movement Restrictions

Rohingya frequently require authorization to travel between villages, townships, or regions.

Movement restrictions interfere with their ability to:

• obtain medical care;
• attend school;
• find employment;
• visit family members;
• trade goods;
• access markets;
• or leave displacement camps.

Some Rohingya communities are effectively confined to villages or camps.

Displacement Camps

Approximately 145,000 Rohingya live in displacement camps, many of which were established after communal violence in 2012.

These camps are not simply temporary shelters. Many residents have lived there for more than a decade while being denied meaningful freedom to leave or return to their original homes.

Conditions commonly include:

• inadequate housing;
• limited healthcare;
• restricted education;
• dependence on humanitarian assistance;
• movement controls;
• unemployment;
• and vulnerability to natural disasters and disease.

Separate and Inferior Services

Rohingya may receive healthcare, education, and humanitarian services through separate and inferior systems.

They can be prevented from using the same:

• hospitals;
• schools;
• roads;
• transportation systems;
• and public facilities

as members of recognized ethnic communities.

Family and Reproductive Restrictions

Rohingya have historically faced restrictions involving:

• marriage authorization;
• household registration;
• the number or registration of children;
• pregnancy;
• and family movement.

These policies allow the state to regulate Rohingya family life in ways that do not ordinarily apply to recognized ethnic groups.

Property and Livelihood Restrictions

Rohingya communities have experienced:

• confiscation of land;
• destruction of homes;
• restrictions on farming and fishing;
• barriers to employment;
• limitations on business ownership;
• and denial of access to former villages.

Following military operations, Rohingya land has sometimes been reallocated, militarized, or incorporated into government-controlled development projects.

State Violence and Mass Expulsion

In 2017, Myanmar’s military conducted operations that drove more than 700,000 Rohingya into Bangladesh.

The operations included documented allegations of:

• mass killings;
• rape and sexual violence;
• village destruction;
• arbitrary detention;
• torture;
• and forced displacement.

The United States and several human-rights organizations have characterized the campaign as genocide. International proceedings have also examined possible genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.

Application of the Apartheid Definition

Legal Qualification

No international criminal court has issued a final judgment convicting Myanmar officials specifically of the crime against humanity of apartheid.

The apartheid classification is primarily associated with the legal analysis of organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

Other overlapping legal classifications include:

• persecution;
• crimes against humanity;
• ethnic cleansing;
• forced displacement;
• war crimes;
• and alleged genocide.

These terms are not mutually exclusive. A population can be subjected to apartheid while also experiencing forced displacement or genocide.

The Rohingya in Bangladesh

Estimated Population

As of June 30, 2026, Bangladesh hosted approximately 1,200,171 Rohingya refugees.

The population was distributed approximately as follows:

• 1,166,352 in the Cox’s Bazar refugee camps;
• 33,819 on Bhasan Char island.

The figures fluctuate as a result of:

• new arrivals;
• births;
• deaths;
• attempted migration;
• trafficking;
• relocation;
• and differences in registration.

Why Conditions in Bangladesh Are Described as Apartheid-Like

Bangladesh has not ordinarily been classified as committing apartheid against the Rohingya. Nevertheless, its refugee policies create a system of ethnic segregation and rights deprivation that resembles apartheid in several respects.

Physical Segregation

Almost the entire Rohingya population is concentrated in refugee camps rather than permitted to settle throughout Bangladesh.

Most live in 33 camps in the Cox’s Bazar area. Others have been relocated to Bhasan Char, a remote island in the Bay of Bengal.

This creates two distinct systems:

• Bangladeshi citizens living under ordinary civil law;
• Rohingya refugees living under a separate camp-administration and humanitarian-control system.

Restrictions on Movement

Rohingya refugees generally do not possess freedom of movement comparable to Bangladeshi citizens.

Travel outside the camps may require permission and can be limited through:

• checkpoints;
• fencing;
• documentation requirements;
• police enforcement;
• arrests;
• or threats of detention.

Human Rights Watch has compared the camps to “open-air prisons” because residents can be prevented from leaving or moving freely.

Bhasan Char

Bhasan Char is a remote, flood-prone island to which thousands of Rohingya have been relocated.

Concerns involving the island include:

• restricted departure;
• geographic isolation;
• limited independent monitoring;
• insufficient livelihood opportunities;
• dependence on state and humanitarian assistance;
• inadequate access to specialized healthcare;
• and vulnerability to extreme weather.

Human-rights organizations have argued that Rohingya on Bhasan Char may be subjected to arbitrary or coercive confinement.

No General Right to Work

Rohingya generally cannot legally participate in the ordinary Bangladeshi labor market.

Although limited volunteer, cash-for-work, or livelihood programs operate within the camps, refugees generally cannot:

• obtain normal work authorization;
• establish ordinary businesses;
• move freely for employment;
• or become economically independent.

This results in:

• dependence on humanitarian aid;
• illegal informal employment;
• exploitation;
• low wages;
• child labor;
• trafficking vulnerability;
• and criminal recruitment.

Separate and Inferior Education

Rohingya children generally cannot attend ordinary Bangladeshi public schools.

Education is instead provided through camp-based learning centers that frequently offer:

• limited curricula;
• fewer instructional hours;
• inadequate facilities;
• limited teacher training;
• weak certification;
• and few pathways to secondary or higher education.

Approximately 437,000 school-age Rohingya children were affected by education shortages and funding reductions during 2025.

The existence of an ethnically separate and inferior educational structure is one of the strongest apartheid-like characteristics of the Bangladeshi system.

No Durable Legal Status

Bangladesh is not a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and does not have a comprehensive domestic refugee law.

Rohingya therefore lack a stable legal status providing enforceable rights comparable to recognized refugees in countries with formal asylum systems.

They generally have:

• no Bangladeshi citizenship;
• no ordinary permanent residency;
• no meaningful path to naturalization;
• no general work authorization;
• restricted movement;
• and no secure right to integrate into Bangladeshi society.

Multigenerational Confinement

Children born in the camps inherit substantially the same position as their parents.

They are born into:

• statelessness;
• restricted movement;
• camp residence;
• limited education;
• aid dependence;
• and exclusion from ordinary Bangladeshi institutions.

Although Bangladesh officially describes the camps as temporary, the system has increasingly become multigenerational.

This weakens the claim that the restrictions are merely short-term emergency measures.

Application of the Apartheid Definition to Bangladesh

Why Bangladesh Is Not Usually Classified as Practicing Apartheid

The principal difficulty is proving that Bangladesh intends to maintain a permanent system of ethnic domination over the Rohingya.

Bangladesh argues that:

• the Rohingya are refugees rather than Bangladeshi citizens;
• the camps are temporary;
• repatriation to Myanmar is the intended solution;
• restrictions are necessary for security and camp administration;
• and Bangladesh has accepted an enormous humanitarian burden.

Classic apartheid was explicitly designed to preserve permanent domination by one racial group over another.

Bangladesh officially presents its policy as temporary refugee management rather than permanent Bengali supremacy.

Nevertheless, after years of confinement, the distinction becomes less convincing when refugees are denied:

• movement;
• employment;
• education;
• integration;
• citizenship;
• and any viable future outside the camps.

Best Description of Bangladesh

The most precise characterization is:

Bangladesh maintains a segregated and highly restrictive refugee-containment regime affecting approximately 1.2 million Rohingya. The system has significant apartheid-like features, but it has not been authoritatively classified as the international crime of apartheid.

More commonly accepted descriptions include:

• prolonged encampment;
• ethnic segregation;
• arbitrary confinement;
• denial of freedom of movement;
• denial of the right to work;
• denial of adequate education;
• and exclusion from local integration.

Myanmar and Bangladesh Compared

Is Bangladesh an Islamic State?

Bangladesh is a Muslim-majority constitutional republic with Islam as its official state religion, but it is not formally an Islamic republic or a comprehensive theocracy.

Its official name is the People’s Republic of Bangladesh.

Constitutional Position

Bangladesh’s Constitution contains potentially conflicting commitments.

Article 2A

Article 2A declares:

The state religion of the Republic is Islam.

It also states that the government must ensure equal status and equal rights in the practice of Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, and other religions.

Articles 8 and 12

The Constitution also identifies secularism as a fundamental principle of state policy.

Article 12 calls for eliminating:

• communalism;
• political status in favor of a religion;
• misuse of religion for political purposes;
• and religious discrimination or persecution.

Articles 28 and 41

The Constitution prohibits discrimination based on religion and protects the right to:

• profess;
• practice;
• and propagate religion.

Best Classification

Bangladesh is best described as:

A Muslim-majority constitutional republic with Islam as the state religion and secularism formally retained as a constitutional principle.

Islam influences:

• public culture;
• electoral politics;
• parts of family law;
• and national identity.

However, Bangladesh’s general legal system is not comprehensively based on Sharia.

Relevance to the Rohingya

The Rohingya are themselves overwhelmingly Muslim.

Therefore, Bangladesh’s restrictive treatment of them is not primarily a case of Muslims oppressing a non-Muslim religious minority.

The principal dividing lines are:

• ethnicity;
• nationality;
• citizenship;
• refugee status;
• and social belonging.

Bangladesh treats Rohingya as foreign, stateless refugees rather than as members of the Bangladeshi national community, even though both populations are predominantly Muslim.

This demonstrates that shared religion does not necessarily overcome:

• ethnic nationalism;
• citizenship boundaries;
• security concerns;
• economic pressures;
• or opposition to refugee integration.

Overall Conclusion

Approximately 500,000 to 600,000 Rohingya remain in Myanmar, where they are subjected to an institutionalized system of citizenship denial, movement restrictions, segregation, deprivation, and state violence. Amnesty International and other organizations describe this system as apartheid.

Approximately 1.2 million Rohingya live in Bangladesh, principally in the Cox’s Bazar camps. They face severe restrictions on movement, employment, education, residence, and integration.

Bangladesh’s system has major apartheid-like characteristics because an identifiable ethnic population is segregated and assigned a separate and inferior set of rights. However, the legal apartheid classification is less certain because Bangladesh presents the arrangement as temporary refugee management rather than a permanent project of ethnic domination.

The clearest distinction is:

Myanmar persecutes and subordinates the Rohingya within their ancestral homeland.
Bangladesh protects them from immediate return to Myanmar while simultaneously confining them and preventing meaningful integration.

Sources

International law

• Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Article 7

Myanmar

• Human Rights Watch — Rohingya
• Amnesty International — Myanmar’s Apartheid System Against the Rohingya
• OHCHR — Human Rights Situation in Myanmar
• UK Government — Country Policy and Information Note: Rohingya in Myanmar and Bangladesh

Bangladesh

• UNHCR — Bangladesh Operational Data Portal
• UNHCR — Rohingya Emergency
• Human Rights Watch — Bangladesh Turning Refugee Camps into Open-Air Prisons
• Human Rights Watch — Bangladesh: New Restrictions on Rohingya Camps
• Human Rights Watch — Denial of Education for Rohingya Refugee Children
• Fortify Rights — Bhasan Char and Rohingya Confinement
• UNHCR — Bangladesh Strategy

Bangladesh Constitution

• Bangladesh Constitution — Article 2A
• Bangladesh Constitution — Articles 8 and 12
• Bangladesh Constitution — Articles 28 and 41

Afghanistan: “gender apartheid”

Since returning to power in August 2021, the Taliban have constructed a comprehensive system excluding women and girls from much of public life. Restrictions include:

• banning girls from secondary education;
• excluding women from universities;
• barring women from most employment;
• severely restricting movement;
• excluding women from parks, gyms and many public spaces;
• and imposing extensive dress, guardianship and conduct rules.

UN Women has said the system is rightly and widely considered gender apartheid, while UN experts have called for gender apartheid to be formally recognized as a crime against humanity.

The qualification is important: the existing Rome Statute definition of apartheid refers to domination by one racial group over another. Gender persecution is already expressly prosecutable as a crime against humanity, but “gender apartheid” has not yet achieved the same settled legal status as racial apartheid.

Best classification: Afghanistan is the clearest present example of what is increasingly called gender apartheid, but it is not yet technically identical to the codified crime of racial apartheid.

Russia

Where the argument would apply

The strongest case would not be that Russia itself is an apartheid state, but that Russia may be developing an apartheid-like system in the Ukrainian territories it occupies.

Russia has established a hierarchy between:

• people who accept Russian citizenship and political loyalty;
• Ukrainians who retain Ukrainian citizenship or identity;
• Crimean Tatars and others associated with resistance;
• and Russian citizens, officials, soldiers and settlers entering the territories.

OHCHR has documented mounting pressure on residents to accept Russian citizenship. People lacking Russian citizenship or permanent residency have faced restrictions involving healthcare, pensions, employment, utilities and property transactions. In some occupied areas, continuing to live normally without Russian citizenship has become nearly impossible.

Russian citizenship has also been connected to property rights. Ukrainian owners without Russian passports may be prevented from confirming ownership, while confiscated homes and land may be transferred to Russian authorities, military personnel or incoming Russian “specialists.”

Russia has simultaneously:

• imposed Russian laws and institutions;
• suppressed Ukrainian media and education;
• criminalized expressions of Ukrainian identity or loyalty;
• transferred and deported civilians and children;
• discriminated particularly against Crimean Tatars;
• and promoted demographic and political integration with Russia.

The European Court of Human Rights found patterns of discrimination against Crimean Tatars, while OHCHR reports that Russia has imposed its citizenship, legal system and institutions throughout occupied Crimea.

How it could satisfy the elements

Institutionalized regime

Russian laws, passports, schools, courts, property rules and administrative institutions have replaced Ukrainian institutions. This is more than occasional discrimination: it is a territorially organized governing system.

Group domination

Russian citizens and Russian-aligned authorities possess political and institutional control. Ukrainians who retain Ukrainian identity or citizenship are placed in a subordinate position.

Inhumane acts

The relevant acts could include:

• unlawful detention and torture;
• deportation or forcible transfer;
• confiscation of property;
• denial of basic services;
• political persecution;
• and forced transfer of children.

The ICC has issued warrants relating to the alleged unlawful deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children, although these are war-crime allegations rather than apartheid charges.

Intention to maintain domination

An argument could infer this intent from annexation, forced passportization, demographic alteration, suppression of Ukrainian identity and the creation of permanent Russian institutions.

Why “apartheid” may not be the best term

The principal difficulty is that Russia may not be trying to maintain two permanently separate populations. Its apparent objective is frequently closer to:

• Russification;
• forced assimilation;
• expulsion of resistant inhabitants;
• population replacement;
• and incorporation of the territory into Russia.

Apartheid ordinarily maintains the subordinated group as a distinct population under a continuing hierarchy. Russia often appears to be trying to eliminate Ukrainian political identity within the occupied territories rather than preserve Ukrainians as a permanently separate laboring or resident class.

Therefore, the more established legal categories remain:

illegal occupation, persecution, forcible transfer, deportation, unlawful annexation and cultural assimilation.

Nevertheless, if Russia maintains a durable system in which Russian citizens receive superior political, property and civil rights while Ukrainians without Russian citizenship remain subordinated, the apartheid argument would become substantially stronger.

China

Xinjiang is the strongest possible case

Of the three countries, China’s government in Xinjiang presents the closest potential fit.

The relevant groups are:

• the Han Chinese majority and Han-dominated party-state;
• Uyghurs;
• Kazakhs;
• Kyrgyz;
• and other predominantly Muslim Turkic minorities.

The UN Human Rights Office found credible evidence of large-scale arbitrary detention, intrusive surveillance, restrictions on religion and movement, torture or ill-treatment, reproductive-rights violations and coercive labor programs. It concluded that the arbitrary and discriminatory detention of Uyghurs and other Muslims may constitute crimes against humanity.

UN experts have continued to raise concerns about alleged state-imposed forced labor involving Uyghur, Tibetan and other ethnic minorities.

How Xinjiang could satisfy the apartheid elements

Clearly identifiable ethnic groups

Uyghurs are a recognized national and ethnic group, with a distinct language, history, culture and predominantly Muslim religion. There is therefore little difficulty identifying the relevant group for international racial-discrimination law.

Institutionalized system

The system is embedded in:

• counterterrorism and “de-extremification” regulations;
• detention and prison institutions;
• surveillance databases and checkpoints;
• residential and employment monitoring;
• boarding schools;
• labor-transfer programs;
• religious regulations;
• and Communist Party administrative structures.

A 2025 communication from UN experts continued to question Xinjiang’s de-extremification regulations because of their effects on religion, speech, assembly and association.

Systematic domination

The argument would be that the Han-dominated party-state determines:

• where Uyghurs may travel;
• which religious practices are acceptable;
• which language and cultural practices may be taught;
• who may be detained;
• which employment programs people enter;
• and how Uyghur family and community life may be organized.

Han Chinese are generally not subjected to an equivalent system because of their ethnic or religious identity.

Inhumane acts

Potential qualifying acts include arbitrary detention, torture, forced labor, family separation, severe deprivation of liberty and coercive reproductive policies.

Intention to preserve control

The intent element could be inferred from policies designed to impose long-term political control, diminish independent Uyghur institutions and transform Uyghur cultural and religious life.

The central problem with calling it apartheid

China’s system appears aimed heavily at assimilation, not traditional separation.

South African apartheid attempted to keep racial communities legally separate while preserving white supremacy. Chinese policy officially emphasizes national unity, integration and a shared Chinese identity. In practice, this can mean coercively absorbing Uyghurs into a Han-centered national culture rather than maintaining Uyghurs as an officially separate subordinate population.

That makes the system potentially closer to:

forced assimilation combined with crimes against humanity

than classic apartheid.

China also formally rejects ethnic hierarchy and claims that all 56 recognized ethnic groups possess equal rights and representation.

Formal equality does not disprove apartheid if the practical system is one of domination. But it makes the legal case more complicated because there is no explicit statutory division resembling South Africa’s racial citizenship classifications.

Tibet

A similar but presently less developed argument could be made regarding Tibetans because of:

• controls over Tibetan Buddhism;
• political and linguistic repression;
• surveillance;
• boarding-school policies;
• restrictions on movement and expression;
• and Han-dominated control of regional institutions.

The strongest classification remains coercive assimilation and cultural-religious repression, rather than apartheid. The case would strengthen if evidence established a comprehensive ethnic hierarchy governing residence, land, political participation and access to services.

China’s hukou system

China’s household-registration system is sometimes compared rhetorically to apartheid because it gives rural migrants inferior access to education, healthcare and social services in cities.

But hukou is not normally apartheid in the legal sense because the principal classification is based on:

• place of registration;
• rural or urban status;
• and administrative residency,

rather than membership in an ethnic or racial group.

It may produce inherited and severe class inequality, but class or regional discrimination is not automatically racial apartheid.

Turkey

Kurds

The possible argument

The relevant relationship would be between the Turkish state and its Kurdish population.

Kurds have experienced policies including:

• historical denial or minimization of Kurdish identity;
• restrictions on Kurdish-language education and public use;
• suppression of Kurdish political organizations;
• disproportionate use of counterterrorism laws;
• replacement or removal of elected Kurdish municipal officials;
• military destruction and evacuation of villages, especially during the conflict of the 1980s and 1990s;
• and discrimination against expressions of Kurdish culture.

UN experts stated in 2025 that Kurds in Turkey reportedly face systematic marginalization involving language, education and political representation, alongside repression of the Kurdish political movement.

Why someone might call it apartheid-like

An argument could claim that the Turkish state has historically maintained Turkish ethnic and linguistic dominance by:

• treating Turkish identity as the default national identity;
• limiting autonomous Kurdish institutions;
• restricting Kurdish-language public education;
• criminalizing certain forms of Kurdish nationalism;
• and exercising unusually intensive security control in Kurdish-majority regions.

During the worst phases of the Kurdish conflict, geographic concentration, emergency rule, village destruction, displacement and political exclusion made southeastern Turkey resemble an internal colonial or apartheid-like security zone.

Why the strict apartheid classification is weak

Contemporary Turkey lacks several central apartheid characteristics.

No separate citizenship

Kurds and ethnic Turks formally possess the same Turkish citizenship.

No comprehensive parallel legal system

There is no formal arrangement in which Kurds are governed by one body of civil law and ethnic Turks by another.

No general residential separation

Kurds live throughout Turkey, including major western cities such as Istanbul, Ankara and İzmir. They are not legally confined to Kurdish districts or homelands.

Political participation remains possible

Kurds can vote, hold public office, form parties within legal restrictions and participate in national institutions, even though Kurdish politicians and organizations frequently face serious state interference.

Discrimination is often mediated through politics

The Turkish government usually frames repression in terms of:

• separatism;
• terrorism;
• national security;
• or opposition politics,

rather than openly assigning inferior rights to every Kurdish person as a member of an ethnic class.

That does not excuse discriminatory enforcement. But it makes persecution and ethnonationalist repression more precise than apartheid.

Best description of Turkey

For current Turkey, the strongest terminology would be:

systematic ethnic discrimination, coercive assimilation, political repression and discriminatory counterterrorism practices against Kurds.

For some periods, particularly the 1980s and 1990s, one might add:

internal colonialism, forced displacement and severe counterinsurgency repression.

Calling Turkey apartheid would ordinarily stretch the legal concept beyond its most defensible boundaries.

Northern Cyprus

Overall assessment

Turkey’s control of northern Cyprus is a substantially stronger apartheid analogy than Turkey’s treatment of Kurds within Turkey. Northern Cyprus contains many of the structural elements associated with apartheid:

• territorial division along ethnic lines;
• mass displacement;
• denial of return;
• continuing deprivation of property;
• a separate political and legal administration;
• restrictions historically imposed on the small Greek Cypriot population remaining in the north;
• settlement and naturalization of people arriving from Turkey;
• and a political order intended to preserve Turkish control over the northern territory.

Nevertheless, neither the United Nations nor the European Court of Human Rights has formally classified the situation as apartheid. The more established descriptions are:

Military occupation, de facto partition, forcible displacement, ethnic separation, property dispossession, demographic colonization, and continuing human-rights violations.

The apartheid characterization is therefore plausible as a comparative argument, especially concerning the period from 1974 through the early 2000s, but it is not the accepted primary legal classification.

Historical background

Cyprus became independent in 1960 under a constitution designed to distribute political power between its Greek Cypriot majority and Turkish Cypriot minority. It created separate communal electoral structures, guaranteed Turkish Cypriot representation, and gave the Turkish Cypriot vice president important powers. This was intended as minority protection and power-sharing rather than majority domination. (UNFICYP)

The arrangement broke down after constitutional disputes and intercommunal violence beginning in December 1963. Turkish Cypriots increasingly withdrew or were excluded from common state institutions, and many lived in defended enclaves. The United Nations established UNFICYP in 1964 because of fighting, kidnappings, killings, hostage-taking, communal separation, and the disintegration of shared governmental institutions. (UNFICYP)

This background matters because the conflict did not begin in 1974 and Turkish Cypriot security concerns were not fabricated. Both communities experienced violence, displacement, and fear before the Turkish intervention.

The 1974 coup and Turkish military intervention

On July 15, 1974, the Cypriot National Guard, directed by officers connected to the Greek military junta, overthrew President Makarios. The coup supported enosis, or the incorporation of Cyprus into Greece. On July 20, Turkey invoked the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee and launched a major military operation. (UNFICYP)

Turkey argues that its intervention was necessary to prevent annexation by Greece and protect Turkish Cypriots. The first intervention occurred in the context of a genuine coup and a collapsing constitutional order.

However, Turkish forces later expanded their control well beyond the main Turkish Cypriot enclaves. By the August 1974 ceasefire, Turkey controlled roughly the northern third of Cyprus. The Security Council had called for an end to foreign military intervention and the withdrawal of foreign military personnel not authorized by international agreements. (UNFICYP)

The legal defense of the initial intervention under the Treaty of Guarantee therefore does not automatically justify:

• the scale of the second military advance;
• permanent territorial partition;
• continued military control;
• denial of refugee return;
• redistribution of property;
• or settlement from mainland Turkey.

Territorial and ethnic partition

Before 1974, Greek and Turkish Cypriots lived in communities distributed across the island, although segregation and enclaves had increased considerably after 1963.

After 1974, Cyprus became divided into:

• a predominantly Greek Cypriot south;
• a predominantly Turkish Cypriot north;
• and a United Nations buffer zone between them.

The UN states that most Greek and Turkish Cypriots have lived separately in the two regions since 1974. Crossing points began opening only in 2003, reducing—but not ending—the physical division. (UNFICYP)

This is one of the clearest apartheid-like features:

Ethnic identity became closely connected to where a person could reside, which political administration governed them, which property they could possess, and whether they could return to their former home.

Mass displacement

The 1974 conflict produced large-scale displacement in both directions:

• Greek Cypriots fled or were removed from the northern territory;
• Turkish Cypriots living in the south moved or were moved into the north.

The result was the near-complete ethnic separation of populations that had previously lived across all six administrative districts. A small number of Greek Cypriots and Maronites remained in northern enclaves, particularly on the Karpas Peninsula. (OHCHR Document Store)

This resembles ethnic partition more than classic South African apartheid. South African apartheid generally retained the subordinated population within a common economic system as a controlled labor force. Northern Cyprus largely removed one population from the territory and concentrated the other within it.

That distinction favors terms such as:

• forcible population transfer;
• ethnic cleansing;
• territorial partition;
• or demographic separation.

Denial of return

Displaced Greek Cypriots have generally been unable to return permanently to homes and communities in the north on the same terms as residents recognized by the northern administration.

The European Court of Human Rights found a continuing violation because Greek Cypriot property owners were denied access to, control over, use of, and enjoyment of their property. In individual cases such as Loizidou v. Turkey and Xenides-Arestis v. Turkey, the Court held Turkey responsible for preventing owners from accessing their land or homes.

The Court has accepted that the northern Immovable Property Commission can, in principle, serve as a remedy for claims involving restitution, exchange, or compensation. But the underlying property problem remains unresolved, and in June 2025 the Court found another property-rights violation because the commission had not handled a Greek Cypriot company’s claim coherently and promptly enough. (ECHR)

Why this matters

The issue is not merely that refugees lost homes during a war.

A political and legal system has continued for decades in which people displaced because they were Greek Cypriot are generally prevented from freely repossessing and residing on their property, while other residents may occupy or use that property.

That is a major apartheid-like characteristic.

Turkey’s responsibility and “effective overall control”

The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus declared independence in 1983. It is recognized as a sovereign state only by Turkey.

The UN Security Council regarded the declaration as legally invalid and called on states not to recognize the breakaway entity. The United Nations nevertheless works with both communities for practical peacekeeping and negotiation purposes. (UNFICYP)

The European Court of Human Rights has held that Turkey exercises effective overall control over northern Cyprus through its military presence and support. Turkey can therefore be held responsible under the European Convention for conduct by its soldiers, officials, and the subordinate northern administration. (HUDOC)

This finding strengthens an apartheid analysis because the system cannot be treated simply as spontaneous separation between two local communities. A foreign state exercises decisive military and political power over the territory.

Treatment of Greek Cypriots remaining in the north

The strongest direct evidence of apartheid-like treatment concerns the Greek Cypriots who remained in the Karpas region after 1974.

In its 2001 judgment in Cyprus v. Turkey, the European Court of Human Rights found violations involving:

• restrictions on access to religious sites;
• censorship of Greek-language schoolbooks;
• lack of adequate secondary education;
• insecurity of property and inheritance rights;
• restrictions on private and family life;
• monitoring of movement and contacts;
• and the lack of effective remedies.

Most significantly, the Court found that Greek Cypriots in Karpas had been subjected to discrimination amounting to degrading treatment. It described a population forced to live in isolation, controlled and restricted in its movements, and deprived of any realistic prospect of renewing or developing its community.

The Court noted that surveillance could extend to the presence of officials inside Greek Cypriot homes during visits from relatives or other people.

This is close to a textbook description of group-based domination:

A small ethnic community remained in its homeland but was isolated, monitored, denied equal education and property rights, and prevented from sustaining itself as a functioning community.

The finding concerned conditions examined in proceedings culminating in 2001. Conditions have changed in some respects since crossings opened in 2003, so it should not automatically be treated as a complete description of every present-day restriction.

Settlement from mainland Turkey

After 1974, substantial numbers of Turkish nationals moved into northern Cyprus and received land, housing, citizenship, or political rights.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe concluded in 2003 that the demographic structure had been deliberately modified through policies supported by Turkey and the Turkish Cypriot administration. It condemned naturalization policies encouraging new arrivals and described the process as “hidden colonisation.” (Council of Europe Assembly)

The Council of Europe reported that Turkish settlers had received:

• housing or land on favorable terms;
• access to property;
• naturalization;
• voting rights;
• and permanent residence.

It also noted concerns among indigenous Turkish Cypriots that settlers affected their political representation, economy, culture, and community identity. (PACE)

Population estimates are politically contested and older Council of Europe figures should not be treated as precise current counts. The underlying fact that Turkey encouraged permanent settlement and naturalization, however, was recognized by the Council of Europe. (PACE)

Why settlement strengthens the apartheid comparison

Settlement can help preserve territorial domination by:

1. replacing or diluting the population displaced from the territory;
2. placing politically loyal residents on confiscated or abandoned property;
3. altering the electorate;
4. making refugee return more difficult;
5. and creating permanent demographic facts supporting partition.

This resembles other settler-occupation systems more closely than classic domestic segregation.

Property redistribution

Greek Cypriot homes, farmland, hotels, and businesses left behind in 1974 were incorporated into the northern political and economic system.

Some property was:

• allocated to displaced Turkish Cypriots;
• distributed to settlers from Turkey;
• converted into public property;
• developed for tourism;
• or sold and transferred under northern property law.

There was a real humanitarian issue involving Turkish Cypriots displaced from the south, many of whom also lost homes and property. Allocating shelter to displaced Turkish Cypriots immediately after the conflict was not inherently an apartheid policy.

The more serious issue is the transformation of temporary wartime allocation into a permanent legal arrangement that disregarded the continuing ownership rights of Greek Cypriots. The European Court repeatedly confirmed that displaced owners did not automatically lose their legal title merely because the northern administration purported to confiscate or reassign their property. (HUDOC)

Varosha

Varosha, formerly a major Greek Cypriot resort district of Famagusta, was fenced off by the Turkish military after 1974. Its original inhabitants were prevented from returning.

The Security Council has maintained that Varosha should not be settled by anyone other than its lawful inhabitants. In 2021, it condemned Turkish and Turkish Cypriot steps toward reopening parts of the fenced area and called for their reversal. (United Nations Press)

Varosha is particularly symbolic because:

• the population was displaced;
• the territory remained under military control;
• owners were excluded for decades;
• and decisions about reopening were made without restoring normal possession to the original residents.

Application of the apartheid test

The Rome Statute defines apartheid as serious inhumane acts committed within an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over another, with the intention of maintaining that regime. (United Nations Office of Legal Affairs)

The strongest argument that it is apartheid

The argument would be:

1. Turkey and the northern administration maintain a territorially organized system under decisive Turkish military power.
2. The system was created through the mass displacement of Greek Cypriots and the transfer of Turkish Cypriots into the north.
3. Greek Cypriots are denied unrestricted return and ordinary enjoyment of their property.
4. The few who remained were subjected to ethnically discriminatory isolation and restrictions.
5. Settlers from Turkey were naturalized and integrated into the territory’s political and property systems.
6. The arrangement preserves Turkish and Turkish Cypriot control over land from which most Greek Cypriots were removed.

Under this interpretation, northern Cyprus represents:

An institutionalized regime preserving territorial and political domination through ethnic separation, population transfer, denial of return, and discriminatory property rules.

The strongest argument against the apartheid classification

1. Expulsion rather than sustained internal subordination

The majority of Greek Cypriots were displaced from the north rather than retained there as a subordinate resident population.

That pattern is closer to:

• ethnic cleansing;
• forcible transfer;
• or partition

than to classic apartheid.

2. Reciprocal displacement

Turkish Cypriots were also displaced from the south and had experienced communal violence and enclave conditions before 1974. The northern political order was presented as protection from renewed Greek Cypriot domination, not simply as a project of Turkish racial superiority. (UNFICYP)

3. A binational conflict rather than one domestic racial caste system

Cyprus was constitutionally organized around two political communities from independence. The conflict concerns sovereignty, security, federal arrangements, self-determination, and competing national identities, not only a dominant racial group exploiting an internal minority.

4. Movement is no longer completely prohibited

Crossings between north and south have operated since 2003. Greek and Turkish Cypriots can cross the buffer zone through designated checkpoints, although crossing is not equivalent to restoration of residence, sovereignty, or property rights. (UNFICYP)

5. Some property remedies exist

The European Court has recognized the northern Immovable Property Commission as a potential domestic remedy, even though implementation, delays, compensation, and restitution remain contested. (ECHR)

Comparison with South African apartheid

Best classification

The most precise formulation is:

Assessment

Turkey’s control of northern Cyprus is not generally classified as apartheid, but it has significant apartheid-like features.

These include territorial segregation, mass ethnic displacement, denial of return, discriminatory treatment of the Greek Cypriots who remained, continuing deprivation of property, settlement from Turkey, and a separate political system maintained under Turkey’s effective overall control.

The most established legal and historical description is military occupation combined with de facto partition, forcible displacement, demographic colonization, and continuing property and human-rights violations.

The apartheid comparison is strongest for the treatment of enclaved Greek Cypriots and the permanent ethnically organized property and residency system. It is weakened by the fact that most Greek Cypriots were expelled or excluded rather than maintained as a large subordinate population within northern Cyprus.

Relative strength among the cases discussed

The Turkish-controlled northern Cyprus case belongs in a serious survey of apartheid-like territorial regimes, but it should be labeled carefully rather than presented as a settled apartheid determination.

Twentieth-century Turkey

Although republican Turkey was constitutionally secular rather than an Islamic state, non-Muslim Greeks, Armenians, and Jews were often treated as less authentically Turkish.

Examples include:

• the 1942 Wealth Tax, which disproportionately devastated non-Muslim businesses and property owners;
• labor-camp penalties for those unable to pay;
• the state-instigated 1955 Istanbul pogrom, directed primarily against Greeks but also affecting Armenians and Jews;
• and the 1964 expulsions of Greek nationals.

Academic research connects the Wealth Tax with the disappearance and transfer of non-Muslim enterprises.

These measures were driven more by Turkish nationalist homogenization than by classical Islamic law.

Assessment: Dispossession, persecution, Turkification, and demographic expulsion—not a stable apartheid system.

Muslim-ruled States

Yes. Some Muslim-ruled states and territories have imposed systems that are reasonably described as apartheid-like religious hierarchies. But most do not fit the strict international crime of apartheid as neatly as South Africa did.

The central legal distinction

The Rome Statute defines apartheid as domination by one racial group over another. International racial-discrimination law interprets this broadly to include race, color, descent, and national or ethnic origin—but it does not automatically include religion. By contrast, the separate crime against humanity of persecution expressly covers religious groups.

Therefore:

• Discriminating against someone simply because they are Christian is normally religious persecution, not apartheid.
• Targeting Jews as an ethnic, ancestral, or national group could potentially satisfy the racial-group requirement.
• Targeting Armenians, Assyrians, Copts, Greeks, or southern Sudanese may involve both religious and ethnic identities, making an apartheid analysis more plausible.

1. The traditional dhimmi system

The closest historical analogue is the status of Christians and Jews as dhimmis under classical Islamic law.

Dhimmi communities were generally permitted to:

• practice their religions;
• maintain churches, synagogues, religious courts, and communal institutions;
• own property and conduct business;
• receive state protection.

But they were legally subordinate to Muslims and commonly faced some combination of:

• the jizya, a tax imposed specifically on non-Muslim subjects;
• exclusion from positions exercising authority over Muslims;
• restrictions on bearing arms;
• limitations on constructing or repairing houses of worship;
• unequal evidentiary rules in some courts;
• distinctive clothing regulations in certain periods;
• prohibitions on publicly proselytizing to Muslims;
• and an acknowledged obligation to accept Muslim political supremacy.

The details varied enormously by century, ruler, region, and legal school. Dhimmis sometimes attained wealth, influence, and substantial autonomy, while at other times restrictions were enforced severely. Cambridge historian Heather Sharkey summarizes the underlying arrangement as one in which Christians and Jews were protected but assigned a subordinate social status.

Was dhimma apartheid?

Descriptively, it had apartheid-like features:

• inherited group status;
• unequal taxation;
• legal disabilities;
• communal classification;
• formal supremacy of one religious group.

But it differed from South African apartheid because it generally did not impose comprehensive territorial separation, prohibit all social interaction, or create the same modern bureaucratic racial classification system.

The most accurate description is:

An institutionalized confessional hierarchy or religious caste system—not necessarily apartheid in the modern criminal-law sense.

Most formal dhimmi disabilities were dismantled during nineteenth-century reforms, although social attitudes and elements of religiously differentiated law survived.

Sudan under Islamist rule: the strongest state-level comparison

The treatment of southern Sudanese under governments based in Khartoum, especially after President Jaafar Nimeiri imposed Islamic law in 1983 and during Omar al-Bashir’s rule, is one of the strongest possible comparisons.

The conflict involved an Arabized Muslim ruling establishment exercising power over southern populations who were frequently:

• Black African rather than Arab;
• Christian or followers of traditional religions;
• culturally and linguistically distinct;
• politically and economically marginalized.

The government pursued Islamization, restricted Christian institutions, supported ethnically divisive armed groups, displaced populations, and tolerated or participated in enslavement and severe abuses during the north–south conflict. Human Rights Watch described government divide-and-rule policies along ethnic lines, while USCIRF documented systematic repression and persecution of Sudanese Christians.

Because religion, ethnicity, race, geography, and political power overlapped, this comes closer to the conventional apartheid framework than purely religious discrimination does.

Nevertheless, the more commonly used classifications are:

• civil war;
• forced Islamization;
• slavery;
• ethnic persecution;
• crimes against humanity;
• war crimes;
• and, concerning some campaigns, allegations of genocide.

Assessment: A credible apartheid-like case, especially from 1983 until the 2005 peace agreement and South Sudanese independence in 2011, but never definitively adjudicated as apartheid.

ISIS territory in Iraq and Syria

ISIS created perhaps the clearest modern attempt to revive an explicit religious hierarchy.

Christians under ISIS were instructed to:

• convert to Islam;
• pay jizya and accept subordinate status;
• leave;
• or face death.

Christian property was confiscated, homes were marked, churches were destroyed or appropriated, and approximately 125,000 Christians fled areas captured by ISIS. Yazidis suffered mass murder, enslavement, rape, forced conversion, and child abduction.

This was highly apartheid-like because ISIS consciously classified people by religion and allocated rights accordingly.

But ISIS often went beyond maintaining a subordinate minority population. Its objective was frequently to eliminate, expel, enslave, or forcibly convert unwanted communities.

Therefore, the more precise classifications are:

• religious persecution;
• ethnic and religious cleansing;
• crimes against humanity;
• and genocide, particularly against the Yazidis.

Assessment: The clearest example of a self-declared religious-apartheid project, but its exterminatory policies are more accurately described as persecution and genocide.

Jews in Arab and Muslim countries after 1948

The treatment of Jews in some Arab states after Israel’s establishment is particularly relevant because Jews can constitute both a religious and an ethnic or descent group.

The circumstances differed considerably among countries. It would be inaccurate to describe every Jewish departure as a direct state expulsion. Zionist migration, war, insecurity, nationalism, economic opportunity, colonial decolonization, antisemitism, and state coercion all contributed in different proportions.

Nevertheless, several states enacted unmistakably discriminatory measures.

Iraq

Iraq enacted laws in 1950 and 1951 that enabled the mass denaturalization of Jews and froze the property of Jews who registered to leave. The process transformed members of one of Iraq’s oldest indigenous communities into stateless emigrants whose assets could not be accessed. Recent scholarship describes this as the legal production of Jews as political undesirables and internal enemies.

Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Yemen

Across the region, Jews experienced varying combinations of:

• arrests and internment;
• dismissal from public employment;
• denaturalization;
• business restrictions;
• confiscation or sequestration of property;
• pogroms and mob violence;
• restrictions on emigration;
• and, in some cases, expulsion.

Approximately 800,000 Jews left Arab countries during the two decades following the 1948 war, although the balance between voluntary migration, flight, state pressure, and direct expulsion differed substantially by country.

Was this apartheid?

In some states, Jews temporarily occupied the position of a legally disadvantaged ethnoreligious group. The racial or ethnic element is consequently more plausible here than in cases involving Christians solely as Christians.

But the overriding trajectory was generally:

Denaturalization, dispossession, forced emigration, or expulsion—not the permanent maintenance of Jews as a subordinate resident population.

Apartheid preserves a group under domination. These policies commonly sought to remove the group from the national community altogether.

Assessment: Ethnoreligious persecution, discriminatory denaturalization, dispossession, and—in the clearest cases—forced displacement or ethnic cleansing are usually more accurate than apartheid.

Pakistan and Christians

Pakistan possesses a constitutionally privileged Islamic identity, and Christians face:

• blasphemy prosecutions;
• mob attacks following blasphemy accusations;
• attacks on churches and Christian neighborhoods;
• employment and caste-based discrimination;
• forced-conversion allegations;
• and limited access to the highest political offices.

Pakistan also previously used separate electorates that required religious minorities to vote for minority representatives rather than participate fully in ordinary territorial elections. Its current blasphemy system affects Muslims as well, but Christians and other minorities are particularly vulnerable to accusation, mob violence, and misuse of the law. USCIRF’s 2026 report documented continuing blasphemy enforcement and intensified vigilante attacks against Christians and other minorities.

This is an institutionalized religious hierarchy, especially when combined with inherited caste and occupational status among parts of Pakistan’s Christian population.

But Christians:

• possess Pakistani citizenship;
• are not generally confined to separate territories;
• are not governed by a completely separate public legal system;
• and retain voting rights and reserved parliamentary representation.

Assessment: Severe confessional discrimination and religious persecution, with certain apartheid-like features, but not a convincing complete apartheid regime.

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia prohibits public non-Muslim worship and does not permit churches or synagogues. Public religious life is organized around the state’s interpretation of Islam, and religious dissent may produce severe punishment. USCIRF reported in 2026 that public non-Muslim worship remained constitutionally prohibited.

This is an unusually severe system of religious exclusion.

Yet it is not a strong apartheid case because:

• most Christians are foreign workers rather than a longstanding citizen community;
• there is no extensive parallel Christian or Jewish territorial system;
• the government largely prohibits public non-Muslim religious institutions rather than maintaining them as a subordinate political caste;
• and the division is primarily religious and citizenship-based rather than racial or ethnic.

Assessment: Theocratic religious repression and exclusion, not ordinarily apartheid.

Iran

Iran’s constitution recognizes Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians as protected minorities. They may maintain houses of worship, apply their own religious laws in some personal-status matters, and have reserved parliamentary seats.

At the same time:

• Twelver Shiism is permanently established as the official religion;
• recognized minorities are excluded from many senior offices;
• conversion from Islam is heavily suppressed;
• Persian-speaking Christian converts are particularly vulnerable;
• and Jewish and Christian communities face surveillance and politically motivated accusations.

Iranian law therefore resembles a modern confessional hierarchy: certain historic minorities are tolerated within defined boundaries, while converts and unrecognized groups receive far less protection. USCIRF reported intensified targeting of Jews, Christians, Bahá’ís, Sunnis, and other minorities during 2025.

Assessment: Institutionalized religious inequality and persecution, but not a sufficiently comprehensive system of spatial and political separation to constitute apartheid.

Egypt and the Copts

Coptic Christians have experienced:

• difficulty constructing or legalizing churches;
• underrepresentation in government and security institutions;
• sectarian attacks;
• mob violence;
• discriminatory treatment by local authorities;
• and restrictions involving conversion and religious identification.

USCIRF continues to describe Copts, Jews, nonbelievers, and other minorities in Egypt as facing governmental and societal discrimination.

But Copts generally possess the same formal citizenship, live throughout the country, vote in ordinary elections, and are not subjected to a separate territorial legal regime.

Assessment: Serious systemic discrimination and intermittent persecution, but not apartheid.

Houthi-controlled Yemen

The Houthi authorities have persecuted religious minorities, including converts to Christianity, Bahá’ís, and Yemen’s remaining Jews. Minority communities have been subjected to surveillance, detention, intimidation, and pressure to leave or conceal their identities. By 2025, USCIRF described the few remaining minority believers in Houthi territory as frequently remaining hidden because of threats.

The practical result for Yemen’s ancient Jewish community has been near disappearance.

Assessment: Religious persecution and forced displacement rather than apartheid, because the tendency is toward expulsion or disappearance rather than maintaining a large subordinate population.

TP2-3: Settler-Colonial State

Colonialism — Scholarly Definition

Colonialism is a durable practice or structure of domination in which one political community establishes unequal control over another territory and its population, subordinating the colonized people’s sovereignty, institutions, land, labor, resources, or culture to the interests of the colonizing power.

Colonialism may be imposed by a foreign state, an imperial administration, chartered companies, military forces, or a settler population supported by a larger political power. It can operate through direct annexation and government or through indirect rule using local rulers and institutions.

A colonial relationship generally contains several of the following elements:

1. External or imposed political domination

   • A population is governed by authorities it did not freely establish or cannot remove on equal political terms.
   • Ultimate sovereignty rests with an outside power or politically dominant population.

2. Territorial control

   • The colonizing power conquers, occupies, annexes, settles, partitions, or otherwise establishes durable control over territory.
   • Colonialism may occur overseas or through expansion across a contiguous land frontier.

3. Subordination of the colonized population

   • The colonized population occupies an unequal legal, political, economic, or social position.
   • It may be denied equal citizenship, political representation, land rights, freedom of movement, cultural autonomy, or control over local institutions.

4. Reorganization for the colonizer’s benefit

   • Land, labor, taxation, trade, natural resources, infrastructure, or government institutions are reorganized according to the colonizing power’s strategic, economic, demographic, or ideological objectives.

5. A legitimating hierarchy

   • Colonial rule is commonly justified by claims that the colonized are backward, uncivilized, incapable of self-government, racially inferior, religiously deficient, or in need of modernization.
   • These ideas help legitimize unequal rule while portraying domination as beneficial or necessary.

6. Durability and institutionalization

   • Colonialism is more than a brief invasion or isolated military victory.
   • It normally creates an enduring political relationship supported by laws, administrative institutions, economic systems, military power, settlement, or cultural policy.

Colonialism and imperialism

The terms overlap and scholars do not use them consistently. A common distinction is:

• Imperialism is the broader exercise of political, military, or economic power by one state over another territory or society.
• Colonialism is a more direct and institutionalized form of imperial domination involving territorial administration, population settlement, political dependency, or the systematic restructuring of colonized society.

Colonialism can therefore be understood as one important form of imperialism, although some scholars use the two terms almost interchangeably.

What does not automatically constitute colonialism

Colonialism is not synonymous with:

• every war or territorial conquest;
• every military occupation;
• ordinary immigration;
• cultural influence;
• international trade;
• economic inequality between countries;
• diplomatic pressure;
• every historical empire.

These may contribute to colonial domination, but a colonial classification normally requires a durable relationship of territorial control, unequal sovereignty, institutionalized subordination, or imposed social and economic transformation.

Important terminology

“Colonial state” has two related meanings:

1. A state that possesses or governs colonies.
2. The administrative and institutional apparatus through which colonial rule is exercised inside a colonized territory.

Calling a present-day country a “colonial state” should therefore specify:

• which territory is considered colonized;
• which population is considered colonized;
• how political sovereignty is unequal;
• which institutions maintain the relationship;
• whether the relationship is historical or ongoing.

Condensed test

Colonialism exists when one political community establishes durable and unequal control over another territory and population, subordinating their sovereignty and reorganizing their institutions, land, labor, resources, or culture according to the colonizer’s interests.

Sources

• Margaret Kohn and Kavita Reddy, “Colonialism,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Jürgen Osterhammel, Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview
• Frederick Cooper, Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History
• Lorenzo Veracini, Colonialism: A Global History
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Settler Colonialism — Scholarly Definition

Settler colonialism is a distinct form of colonialism in which an incoming population settles permanently on Indigenous or previously inhabited land, seeks to establish a new society and political order there, and attempts to acquire lasting control over the territory by displacing, subordinating, absorbing, assimilating, or otherwise eliminating the original population as an independent political and territorial presence.

Unlike colonial systems primarily organized to govern and exploit a distant population, settler-colonial projects are principally oriented toward land, permanent settlement, and sovereignty. The settlers do not merely administer the territory temporarily: they “come to stay” and seek to make the territory their permanent homeland.

A settler-colonial relationship generally contains the following elements:

1. Permanent settlement

   • A substantial incoming population intends to remain, reproduce across generations, and establish a permanent society.
   • This distinguishes settlers from temporary soldiers, administrators, merchants, migrant workers, or occupying forces.

2. Acquisition of Indigenous land

   • The project depends on transferring land from Indigenous or prior inhabitants to settlers, the colonial state, or institutions controlled by the settler population.
   • Land may be acquired through warfare, expulsion, treaties made under unequal conditions, confiscation, enclosure, property law, settlement grants, or declarations that the land was empty or insufficiently used.

3. Creation of a new political order

   • Settlers establish institutions, laws, borders, property systems, citizenship rules, and national narratives that assert sovereignty over the territory.
   • The settler society seeks political autonomy or dominance rather than remaining merely a temporary extension of the imperial administration.

4. Subordination of Indigenous sovereignty

   • Indigenous nations are prevented from exercising independent political authority over their traditional lands.
   • Their governments, legal systems, treaties, territorial rights, or collective political identities may be rejected, restricted, incorporated, or placed under settler supervision.

5. A “logic of elimination”

   • Patrick Wolfe used this term to describe the structural pressure to remove Indigenous peoples as obstacles to settler access to land and sovereignty.
   • “Elimination” does not refer only to physical extermination. It may include:
     • killing or genocidal violence;
     • forced expulsion or population transfer;
     • confinement to reservations or restricted areas;
     • destruction of political and cultural institutions;
     • forced assimilation;
     • removal of children;
     • suppression of language or religion;
     • legal reclassification;
     • intermarriage policies intended to dissolve collective identity;
     • demographic marginalization;
     • absorption of individuals while denying the continued existence of the Indigenous people as a distinct nation.

6. Structural continuity

   • Settler colonialism is commonly described as a structure rather than a single event.
   • The initial conquest may be historical, while its political order continues through land ownership, borders, legal institutions, settlement patterns, unresolved sovereignty claims, and restrictions on Indigenous self-government.

7. Narratives of legitimacy

   • Settler projects frequently claim that the territory was empty, underdeveloped, uncultivated, promised to the settlers, legally available, or destined for settlement.
   • Indigenous inhabitants may be portrayed as nomadic, primitive, foreign, vanishing, incapable of sovereignty, or merely one minority within the new state.

Settler colonialism compared with other colonialism

A simplified distinction is:

• In an extractive or franchise colony, the colonizer generally seeks to rule Indigenous people and exploit their labor or resources.
• In a settler colony, the colonizer principally seeks Indigenous land and attempts to establish a permanent replacement society.

The distinction is not absolute. Settler-colonial societies may also exploit Indigenous labor, enslaved populations, imported workers, or other subordinated groups. Colonial projects can also change over time from extraction to settlement or combine both systems.

What does not automatically constitute settler colonialism

Settler colonialism is not synonymous with:

• all immigration;
• refugees moving into another country;
• the presence of an ethnic diaspora;
• ordinary population growth;
• individuals purchasing property;
• temporary military occupation;
• conquest without substantial permanent settlement;
• every historical migration;
• every multiethnic or multinational state.

The relevant question is not simply whether newcomers arrived. It is whether settlement formed part of a durable project that acquired land, displaced or subordinated an existing people, denied their sovereignty, and established a replacement political order.

Settler colonialism and genocide

Settler colonialism and genocide are related but not identical concepts.

• Some settler-colonial projects have employed genocide or mass killing.
• Others have pursued elimination through expulsion, confinement, assimilation, legal erasure, demographic replacement, or destruction of Indigenous political autonomy.
• A state may therefore exhibit settler-colonial structures without every period or policy legally constituting genocide.

Important terminology

“Settler-colonial state” is a scholarly historical and political classification, not a formal legal status assigned by an international court.

A careful analysis should identify:

• the incoming settler population;
• the Indigenous or prior population;
• the historical process by which land changed control;
• the institutions through which settler sovereignty was created;
• the methods used to displace, subordinate, assimilate, or eliminate Indigenous sovereignty;
• whether those structures remain politically operative.

Because populations often have complicated histories of migration, exile, conquest, indigeneity, and cultural attachment, the label should be demonstrated through historical and institutional evidence rather than inferred solely from ethnic difference or the fact that migration occurred.

Condensed test

Settler colonialism exists when an incoming population settles permanently on inhabited territory, acquires Indigenous land, suppresses or replaces Indigenous sovereignty, and establishes a new political society intended to endure on that land.

Sources

• Patrick Wolfe, “Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native,” Journal of Genocide Research
• Lorenzo Veracini, Settler Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview
• Jay Lalonde, “Settler Colonialism and the Politics of Colonialism,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Migration Studies
• “Editors’ Statement,” Settler Colonial Studies
• Margaret Kohn and Kavita Reddy, “Colonialism,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

• Belgium — Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Rwanda-Urundi
• Denmark — Greenland, Danish West Indies, Gold Coast settlements, Indian trading colonies
• France — large empires in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, North America, and the Pacific
• Germany — Namibia, Tanzania, Cameroon, Togo, New Guinea, Pacific islands and concessions in China
• Italy — Libya, Eritrea, Somalia, Ethiopia, the Dodecanese and concessions in China
• Japan — Korea, Taiwan, southern Sakhalin, Manchuria, Pacific islands and wartime territories
• Netherlands — Indonesia, Suriname, Caribbean colonies, Cape settlement and trading enclaves
• Oman — Zanzibar, parts of the East African coast and Indian Ocean commercial territories
• Portugal — Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, Goa, Macau, East Timor and numerous trading settlements
• Spain — most of Spanish America, the Philippines, Caribbean islands, Western Sahara, Equatorial Guinea and Moroccan territories
• Sweden — New Sweden, the Swedish Gold Coast, Saint Barthélemy and other smaller possessions
• United Kingdom — the largest modern colonial empire, spanning the Americas, Africa, Asia, Oceania, the Caribbean and Middle East
• United States — the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, Hawaii, the Panama Canal Zone and several Pacific islands
• China — Qing and later Chinese settlement and administrative expansion in Xinjiang, Tibet, Inner Mongolia and other frontier regions
• Egypt — nineteenth-century conquest and administration of Sudan and expansion toward the Red Sea and East Africa
• Russia — conquest and settlement of Siberia, the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Far East and northern Indigenous territories
• Turkey — Ottoman imperial rule and state-sponsored population settlement; modern settlement in Northern Cyprus is also frequently discussed in colonial terms
• Australia
• Canada
• New Zealand
• South Africa
• United States
• Argentina — particularly the Conquest of the Desert and occupation of Patagonia
• Brazil — continuing expansion into Indigenous territories, especially the interior and Amazon
• Chile — occupation of Mapuche Araucanía and settlement of southern territories
• Mexico — state settlement, land seizure and assimilation across Indigenous frontier regions
• Uruguay — destruction and absorption of Indigenous communities followed by European immigrant settlement
• Bolivia
• Colombia
• Costa Rica
• Ecuador
• Guatemala
• Guyana
• Honduras
• Nicaragua
• Panama
• Paraguay
• Peru
• Suriname
• Venezuela
• Bangladesh — Bengali settlement in the Chittagong Hill Tracts inhabited by Indigenous Jumma peoples
• Ethiopia — Menelik II’s southern expansion, military colonies and the neftenya-gabbar system
• Indonesia — transmigration and Indonesian settlement in West Papua and other peripheral regions
• Liberia — Americo-Liberian settlement and minority domination over Indigenous populations
• Morocco — occupation and Moroccan settlement of Western Sahara
• Philippines — state-supported Christian Filipino settlement in Mindanao, affecting Moro and Lumad peoples
• Sri Lanka — state-sponsored Sinhalese settlement schemes in contested Tamil and Muslim regions
• Vietnam — the southward expansion into Cham and Khmer territory and later settlement of the Central Highlands
• Austria — Habsburg and Austro-Hungarian imperial administration, particularly Bosnia-Herzegovina and eastern imperial borderlands
• Hungary — shared responsibility within Austria-Hungary, though overseas colonial administration was limited
• Norway — participated in the Denmark-Norway colonial system before 1814; Denmark subsequently retained most colonies
• Latvia — the Duchy of Courland, located largely in present-day Latvia, briefly maintained colonies in Tobago and West Africa, although it was ruled by a Baltic German elite and was not equivalent to modern Latvia
• Afghanistan — Pashtun settlement in northern minority regions
• India — Kashmir, the Northeast, the Andaman Islands and some Indigenous frontier-development projects
• Iran — Persian imperial expansion and assimilation of peripheral nationalities
• Iraq — Arabization and settlement policies in Kurdish areas, especially Kirkuk
• Myanmar — Burmanization and control of ethnic minority frontier regions
• Pakistan — Balochistan and the former domination of East Pakistan
• Romania — state settlement in Dobruja and other newly annexed territories
• Serbia — Serbian and Yugoslav settlement programs in Kosovo and Macedonia
• Syria — the “Arab Belt” settlement project in Kurdish regions
• Thailand — incorporation and assimilation of Patani, northern regions and highland peoples

Did the Arab-Islamic Conquests Constitute Colonialism?

The early Arab-Islamic expansion can reasonably be classified as a form of premodern colonialism or imperial colonial rule, but it only partially and unevenly fits the more specific category of settler colonialism.

Why it fits colonialism

The Rashidun and Umayyad caliphates:

• conquered territories previously governed by Byzantine, Sasanian, Visigothic and Amazigh political authorities;
• transferred sovereignty to caliphal rulers and governors;
• imposed tribute, land taxes and differentiated taxation;
• established permanent Arab military-garrison communities;
• subordinated non-Muslim populations to Muslim political authority;
• privileged Arab military and tribal elites, especially during the Umayyad period;
• gradually made Arabic the principal language of administration, law and elite culture;
• reorganized conquered territories according to the military, fiscal and political interests of the caliphate.

These characteristics satisfy a broad scholarly definition of colonialism: one political community established durable and unequal control over other territories and populations, subordinated their sovereignty and reorganized their institutions and resources.

Why it partially fits settler colonialism

Settler-colonial features included:

• permanent Arab migration into conquered territories;
• the establishment of military colonies such as Kufa, Basra, Fustat and Kairouan;
• settlement on conquered land;
• political and economic privileges attached to the conquering Arab population;
• suppression or replacement of local sovereignty;
• gradual Arabization of some Indigenous and previously established populations.

Iraq provides one of the strongest examples because Kufa and Basra became major centers of Arab settlement and military power. Egypt exhibited a more limited pattern centered initially around Fustat. North Africa experienced military settlement followed by additional Arab tribal migrations, while al-Andalus received both Arab and Amazigh settlers.

Why it was not classic settler colonialism everywhere

The caliphates generally did not attempt to remove or physically replace the entire conquered population. Instead:

• local populations remained demographic majorities for long periods;
• existing farmers, artisans and merchants remained economically essential;
• local administrators and elites were frequently retained;
• Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians usually continued to practice their religions under a subordinate legal status;
• conversion to Islam occurred gradually over generations or centuries;
• Arabization frequently occurred through language adoption, conversion, intermarriage and cultural assimilation rather than mass biological replacement;
• conquered peoples eventually became major participants in Islamic government, scholarship, law, culture and military power.

Classic settler colonialism seeks primarily to acquire land and establish a replacement society by eliminating the original population as an independent political presence. The early caliphates more commonly sought to conquer, govern, tax and incorporate existing populations.

Regional assessment

• Iraq: colonial conquest with strong settler-colonial features.
• Egypt: colonial conquest with limited or partial settler settlement.
• Syria and Palestine: imperial conquest with some settlement, complicated by preexisting Arab communities.
• North Africa: colonial conquest with significant but uneven settler-colonial and Arabizing processes.
• Al-Andalus: colonial conquest and permanent Arab-Amazigh settlement, but mainly local conversion rather than total population replacement.
• Iran: colonial or imperial conquest, but relatively weak settler-colonial replacement; Persian society and culture survived and reshaped Islamic civilization.
• Central Asia: imperial conquest with localized military settlement rather than comprehensive demographic replacement.

Necessary distinctions

Arabization, Islamization and colonization are not identical.

• Colonization refers to political domination, settlement and institutional control.
• Islamization refers to the gradual adoption of Islam.
• Arabization refers to the adoption of Arabic language or Arab cultural identity.

A society could become Muslim without becoming Arab, as occurred in Iran. A population could also become Arabic-speaking largely through cultural assimilation rather than descent from settlers originating in Arabia.

Conclusion

The Arab-Islamic conquests were clearly imperial and can defensibly be described as premodern colonial expansion. They contained settler-colonial elements wherever Arab military or tribal settlers permanently occupied conquered territory and displaced local sovereignty. Nevertheless, the caliphates were not uniformly classic settler-colonial regimes because their dominant pattern was usually the political subordination, taxation, incorporation and gradual assimilation of existing populations rather than their comprehensive removal and demographic replacement.

TP4: Jewish Supremacy

Notebook pg. 87

TP5: Israeli Jews confuse safety with supremacy