Lawyers: Four stateless Malaysia-born women denied citizenship, regressive amendments will worsen plight

Malay Mail

PETALING JAYA, March 19 — Four stateless women who were born in Malaysia are still waiting to be recognised as Malaysian citizens after facing obstacles such as the National Registration Department (NRD) refusing to even give three of them the application forms to confirm their citizenship, human rights group Lawyers for Liberty said today.

These four women are Kuala Lumpur-born Khairunnisa Ibrahim, Kuala Lumpur-born Wiwin Handayani, Seri Mulyati who was born in Klang, Selangor, and Vanessa who was born in Ampang, Selangor, with their ages being 29, 22, 41 and 21, respectively. As they are all stateless, they are not citizens of any country in the world.

LFL adviser Latheefa Koya said the future for these four women is bleak unless the Malaysian government decides to recognise them as Malaysian citizens, which LFL said is a right they are entitled to under the existing citizenship laws in the Federal Constitution.

Latheefa said the NRD had denied the forms that some of them needed to fill up in order to have their Malaysian citizenship status confirmed, which means they have remained stateless.

“So can you imagine, just basic, even a form to fill up, they have been given either the wrong form or denied the form altogether. So for someone, their duty and responsibility is just to give form, and they won’t do it.

“What more to expect them to use their discretion to grant citizenship, you can see the attitude,” she told a press conference held at LFL’s office here to highlight the four stateless women’s plight.

Latheefa was alluding to the Malaysian government’s plans to table citizenship amendments — described as “regressive” by civil society, especially to proposed amendments to the Federal Constitutions where the government wants to change certain categories of Malaysia-born individuals who are entitled to citizenship by “operation of law” by making them obtain citizenship recognition by “registration” instead.

Former Malaysian Bar president Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan, who was also at the press conference, described the planned amendments as the government waging “war on children”, as the amendments would leave the discretion or decision of whether a person should be a Malaysian in the government’s hands instead of being a right they are entitled to under the existing law.

The trio who were denied the application form they needed to even apply to the NRD to be confirmed as Malaysian citizens are: Khairunnisa, Wiwin and Vanessa.

Based on their cases, Latheefa said the form that these stateless persons should have been given is Form E, but said the authorities had added additional conditions just to obtain the form.

According to the NRD’s website, Form E is the application form for confirmation of citizenship status. The NRD’s website provides samples of the Form E but it is stated to be only for reference, and that original forms should be used when applying.

Latheefa said stateless Malaysia-born persons are sometimes also told to go to their respective embassies to confirm they are not citizens of other countries.

Khairunnisa, Wiwin and Vanessa all confirmed that they had gone to the Indonesian embassy in Malaysia, with the embassy confirming that they are all not Indonesian citizens.

Latheefa added that there was no shred of evidence that they were security threats.

Lawyers For Liberty Legal Advisor N. Surendran speaks to the press regarding the stateless children during a press conference regarding stateless children at Lawyers For Liberty office in Petaling Jaya March 19, 2024. — Picture by Sayuti Zainudin

Lawyers For Liberty Legal Advisor N. Surendran speaks to the press regarding the stateless children during a press conference regarding stateless children at Lawyers For Liberty office in Petaling Jaya March 19, 2024. — Picture by Sayuti Zainudin

LFL adviser N. Surendran said the government was putting obstacles for those who seek to be recognised as Malaysian citizens, saying: “And many stateless persons give up because of these conditions that doesn’t exist in law and conjured by the NRD and the Home Ministry. Many of them just give up.”

Surendran said the trio had still made numerous attempts but were unsuccessful, while Seri had applied for citizenship more than once but was rejected.

Seri’s first citizenship application under the Federal Constitution’s Article 15A (which carries an age limit of 21) was rejected, and she then applied under Article 19 (naturalisation) as she was past the age limit and this second application was rejected last year and informed to her this year.

Seri said she had previously approached lawmakers from Umno, Bersatu and PKR to ask for help but these were not fruitful, noting that she was very sad as she did legally obtain a red identification card for permanent residents (MyPR) and subsequently a green identification card (MyKAS) and is now still stateless after decades.

Seri said she had applied for a MyKAS thrice (with such cards having a validity period of five years and needing to be renewed), and that she had tried in 2019 to renew the MyKAS but that renewal was rejected in 2020.

There are currently no citizenship applications by the four women pending with the NRD.

Asked if the four women would be exploring the option of filing court cases to be recognised as Malaysian citizens, Surendran said they should not have to do that as they are Malaysian: “We hope it’s not an option we will have to take, that will take years.”

Lawyer Datuk S. Ambiga speaks to the press regarding the stateless children during a press conference regarding stateless children at Lawyers For Liberty office in Petaling Jaya March 19, 2024. — Picture by Sayuti Zainudin

Lawyer Datuk S. Ambiga speaks to the press regarding the stateless children during a press conference regarding stateless children at Lawyers For Liberty office in Petaling Jaya March 19, 2024. — Picture by Sayuti Zainudin

Ambiga said the government’s planned regressive citizenship amendments would only result in more of these stateless cases, and criticised the government’s bundling of the regressive amendments together with a progressive amendment to enable Malaysian mothers’ overseas-born children to be entitled to Malaysian citizenship.

“Of course, we agree with amendments for mothers, that is a good amendment. But it’s in bad faith, when you give on one hand, but you take with the other, and you take so substantially. For the little consideration you give, you take so much. So they are putting people in a quandary,” Ambiga said, noting that the amendment for Malaysian mothers was desired while the regressive amendments were not wanted.

“So I think it’s an irresponsible way to deal with this situation,” she said.

“The second point is I would like to put themselves in the position of a stateless person, just for a minute. Think of all the things they don’t have, they don’t have IC, so you can’t do anything,” Ambiga, listing these as including being unable to get a driving licence, buying a vehicle, getting married, having a bank account, going to school.

“I would like these politicians to put themselves in the place of stateless persons just for a while and they should tell us whether what we are doing to them is fair,” she said.

She said the Federal Court took a very humane approach and made a correct interpretation of the Federal Constitution in its 2021 decision in the court case known as CCH, and claimed that the government’s proposed regressive amendments would undermine the effect of the Federal Court’s decision.

“I really think our politicians should think twice before proceeding with the amendments,” she said, also adding that the government could resolve the suffering of the four stateless women to enable them to live a normal life in Malaysia and enjoy all the benefits that Malaysians have.

Lawyers For Liberty Executive Director Latheefa Koya speaks to the press regarding the stateless children during a press conference regarding stateless children at Lawyers For Liberty office in Petaling Jaya March 19, 2024. — Picture by Sayuti Zainudin

Lawyers For Liberty Executive Director Latheefa Koya speaks to the press regarding the stateless children during a press conference regarding stateless children at Lawyers For Liberty office in Petaling Jaya March 19, 2024. — Picture by Sayuti Zainudin

Latheefa urged the government to “decouple” or to separate the progressive citizenship amendment which would grant equal recognition to Malaysian mothers with overseas children, from the regressive amendments.

“And the worst part is this, we have a bunch of ministers who sat in the Cabinet and have unanimously passed the papers to allow it to go to Parliament. Where’s the moral courage? We haven’t heard a single minister who stood up and say ‘I don’t want to be part of this’. Not a single minister,” she said of the regressive amendments.

Latheefa also said the government should not try to “fool the people” by suggesting that the regressive amendments came from the rulers, saying: “Don’t blame the royalty for this”.

“This amendment came from the Madani government and they have every opportunity now to actually withdraw this. It’s not too late,” she said, adding that the decoupling could be done, just as how Generation End Game was decoupled from proposed legal provisions on vaping that were brought to Parliament.

“If they can do that, they can do decoupling for this as well, so there is actually no excuse,” she said.