Call on the Federal Government to grant an amnesty to all stateless persons who have proof they were born in this country

This morning I had a meeting with over 30 stateless people who came from all over Ipoh at 6am today to our service center at KK road, Ipoh. They will join us in our journey to Putrajaya.

Another 100 plus stateless people were not able to join us today in our journey to PutraJaya as they either have to go to work or are not well.

From my interaction with the stateless people, I note that all were born locally. Many of them are aged 60 years and above.

Among them is Rada who was born in 1989. Her parents were separated at birth as such in her birth certificate her father's details are missing.

She possesses a green identity card (IC). She has applied for citizenship numerous times but her applications have been unsuccessful. With a green IC she was prevented from entering Government school.

Rada has been denied the basic privileges which comes along as a citizen namely 1) SOSCO coverage as an employee 2) contributions to employee Provident fund(EPF) 3) the right to vote 4) the right to education and a hosts of other benefits.

A stateless person like Rada can't get a government job and is without any coverage of protection of a social net like SOSCO and EPF. She will have to pay her own medical bills where as a citizen is provided free by our Government.

Rada is now married to a Malaysian citizen and has three children. The children birth certificates list the children as "bukan kewarganegaraan" which means non citizens.

The hell Rada went through being a stateless person will now be faced and continued by the innocent children.

It must be noted that case of Rada is not isolated. There are many thousands out there who are like in Rada's situation.

The bulk of the stateless people in Malaysia are Indians. Almost exclusively they are from the lower income group and are very venerable.

Thus many are uneducated and jobless .All these difficulties have now resulted in a new "under class" and marganilized people in Malaysia.

On June 13 this year, I had posed a parliamentary question on the number of applicants who had applied to be citizens since 2008 till 2012 and the reasons of the rejection of their applications.

The reply given was that the total number of applicants since 2008 was 62,309 and the number of successful applicants were 29,848 whereas the balance were rejected as the applicants had not complied with necessary requirements of the Federal Constitution.

In 2009, I had also raised in Parliament the huge number of stateless Indians in Malaysia as the vast majority are state less for no fault of their doing.

I said then that a reliable NGO had mentioned that over 66,000 Indians were reliably learnt not to possess valid identification papers thus disentitling the applicants citizenships.

It has to be noted this figure was never disputed by the government.

When the My Daftar campaign was launched, MIC had identified over 15, 000 people who are without identification papers and thus stateless. Of this number, apparently only 6,000 people received the necessary papers.

Recently it was revealed that over 300,000 Indians are still stateless. If this is true, then the whole blame is definitely on the present BN Government which has been discriminatory against the Indians.

The fact that this long standing issue cannot be resolved makes the BN slogan of People First ring hollow.

I am glad that the Penang government under the leadership of YAB Lim Guan Eng has decided to help tackle this issue. The state government has decided to appoint 5 full time officers to assist the stateless persons in their applications.

Nevertheless, this issue is a federal government matter and the federal government must show its commitment and sincerity to resolve the issue.

Last Sunday, while speaking at the opening of MIC's Congress, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib stated that he had verified from Human Resources Minister and confirmed that only 9000 people are stateless and of this, 7000 have been granted citizenships.

The question is why only now the Government is taking the issue of stateless seriously?

One wonders if the Government is doing some thing now because of the impending General elections.

In any case why are there stateless people in the first place? BN has been in power for 55 years. Why has BN government neglected to address this issue much earlier? Many stateless people are in their 60's and 70's.

They have been disadvantaged and are non citizens by reason of this BN Government. Will Najib and his BN coalition apologise for their mistakes? Will they be ready to make amends and may be offer some monetary compensation for their wrongs?

I call on the federal government to grant an amnesty to all stateless persons who have proof they were born in this country.

In any case if the present BN Government fails to settle this issue, Pakatan Rakayt, if elected to helm Putrajaya government at the next general election, will address it and end the sufferings of the stateless people.