The Human Rights Party today called on the government to set up a special committee to resolve the stateless status of many Malaysians, mostly Indians, in this country.
According to HRP pro-tem secretary-general P Uthayakumar's estimation, the country has at least 150,000 Malaysians of Indian origin without birth certificates and identity cards.
"They and their family members were born here and have been living in this country for generations without identification documents. They are facing a stateless dilemma.
"The government is duty bound to resolve this problem," he told Malaysiakini.
Citing a statement by former Selangor menteri besar Dr Mohd Khir Toyo, he said Selangor alone had 50,000 stateless Indians.
Uthayakumar said since their ancestors did not have or were denied identity documents, the current generation and their children too were denied of their basic rights.
"The worst scenario is that they cannot legally get married because their children too will be denied birth certificates. The cycle goes on to the third, fourth and fifth generations.
"They don't have birth certificates and identity cards because they were not issued such documents by NRD (National Registration Department) counter officers," he said.
"They were denied these basic rights from the time they were born until they die in this country. This can only happen in Malaysia," added the lawyer turned politician.
Risk of arrest looms
Without these basic identification documents, Uthayakumar said a person cannot seek education even at the primary level, cannot obtain a driving licence, cannot secure a decent job or run a business, cannot get married and have children, and cannot own properties and vehicles.
He said a stateless person was at risk of being arrested and jailed for being "an alien in his own country" by the police or immigration officers.
He accused the government of practicing double standards in its national identity policies following the recent move by the Home Ministry to grant citizenship to 92 people.
Minister Hishammuddin Hussein announced that the government was forming the special committee under the NRD to speed up citizenship applications by foreigners, mostly Muslims.
"If the government can form a special unit to process and approve citizenship applications for Muslim foreigners, why can't it do the same to process birth certificate and identity card applications of Malaysian born Indians?" asked Uthayakumar.
He noted that the United Nation Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Malaysia is a signatory, emphasised that a child shall be granted the basic right of obtaining a birth certificate.
However, Uthayakumar said Malaysia failed to protect this right even after 52 years of independence.
Thousands of cases go unreported
He cited a recent case where an Indian girl, whose parents were themselves denied birth certificates, was told to leave school and denied of her right to sit for the SPM examination because she did not have a birth certificate and identity card.
He said due to much begging and media limelight on the issue, the girl, who was at the absolute mercy of the Education Ministry officers, was treated as a special case and allowed to sit for the exam.
Recently, he said one young pregnant Indian Malaysian woman gave birth at the Semenyih immigration depot where she was detained for being without identification documents.
"These cases are just the tip of the iceberg. There are thousands of cases that go unreported," he said.
He pointed out that in a circular in 2008 the Education Ministry warned all Tamil schools not to enroll any Indian children without birth certificates for elementary schooling.
Previously, Tamil school headmasters exercised their discretion and enrolled these Indian children.
"But eventually they were still excluded from secondary schools for being without documents," said Uthayakumar, who is also Hindraf's legal advisor.
However, he said he was informed that children of Burmese Rohingya Muslim refugees and south Thailand Muslims in detention camps were provided full time education.
Uthayakumar urged the Home Ministry to include achieving zero percentage of Indians without birth certificates and identity cards within a 60-day time frame as part of its key performance index (KPI) target.
"Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak must include issuing birth certificates and identity cards to all these working class Indians and their children as part of his 1Malaysia agenda," he said.
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