Lawyers for Liberty adviser N Surendran has rejected claims by Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail that foundlings face no problems in applying for citizenship.
In a statement today, he also said that the statistics produced by Saifuddin lacked credibility and did not match the experience of activists involved in the issue.
“The home minister is wrong as foundlings and stateless persons face enormous difficulties in applying for citizenship and many foundlings’ bid for citizenship have been rejected.
“In a statement yesterday, he said that all 142 applications between 2014 and 2023 were approved. He also claimed that for foundlings beyond the age of infancy, 98 percent of applications were approved.
“He produced these figures in trying to defend the highly controversial citizenship amendment bill which among other things will deprive constitutional safeguards for foundlings.
“These figures claimed by Saifuddin are simply not credible and are starkly contrary to the experience of activists, NGOs, and individual stateless persons who have made repeated unsuccessful applications,” said Surendran, who served a single term as Padang Serai MP from 2013 to 2018.
For cases involving foundlings, an application must be made by law under Article 19B of the Federal Constitution.
Surendran said that if every foundling application was being approved, it wouldn’t explain why there are so many cases filed by foundlings pending in the courts.
“There should be none in the courts, going by Saifuddin’s figures.
“The figures produced by Saifuddin do not in any way reflect the total number of stateless foundlings or persons in the country. At best, they are only the number of applications allegedly made.
“The figures thus shed no light on the real numbers of stateless foundlings or foundling adults out there who may have made multiple applications and been rejected or who have not the means or ability to make applications due to fear arising from not having identity documents, lack of literacy, or challenges in dealing with the officialdom at the National Registration Department,” added Surendran.
Numbers don’t tally
He contrasted Saifuddin’s figure of 142 foundling applications over a 10-year period to police statistics, which indicated that in just four years between 2018 and 2021, there were 149 live babies who were abandoned or dumped.
“That is more foundlings in just four years than in the entire period mentioned by Saifuddin,” said Surendran, who questioned if the latter’s methodology took into account foundlings whose cases are now pending in courts.
“Does it take into account those whose applications have been repeatedly rejected and have stopped trying? Those who are prevented by poor education, poor literacy and fear of the government bureaucracy from even applying?
“Those who are not able to produce any of the documents demanded by NRD to complete their applications due to loss, destruction, or unavailability? Those who have simply not approached the NRD at all due to ignorance of the law that they are not entitled to citizenship?” he asked.
Saifuddin had also stated that for cases of foundlings beyond the age of infancy, the ministry has approved over 98 percent of the total of 59,000 applications for the same period and that while there are 14,000 cases yet to be approved, these cases would be processed before the end of the year.
Inconsistent with decades of experience
Surendran claimed that in sum, Saifuddin’s method appeared to be untenable both quantitatively and qualitatively.
“If what he says is correct and people do not face any difficulties in applying for citizenship from the NRD, there would not be so many stateless persons in the country, without identification papers at all, or with green or red ICs, although born in this country and are not citizens of any other country.
“The figure of 98 percent approval claimed by the minister is inconsistent with the number of cases that are being seen in the country.
“Hence, Saifuddin’s attempt to defend the controversial citizenship bill by claiming that the ministry has been approving the majority of applications is far-fetched, untenable,and flies in the face of the experience of organisations that have been working on the problem for decades.
“Any stateless person will tell you of the mountain of challenges they face in getting their applications for citizenship approved, with many being unjustifiably rejected time and time again.
“They are out there, denied the benefits of citizenship, eking out a living on the margins of society, and living proof of a system that has failed them,” he said.
Surendran added that the only right and decent thing for the government to do is to withdraw those proposed amendments to the Constitution which remove the safeguards in Section 1(e) of the 2nd Schedule of the Constitution and Section 19B. - Mkini
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