The government has approved the application of 10 Malay Malaysians to change their names on the MyKad due to religious conversion, said Home Minister Radzi Sheikh Ahmad today.

According to Bernama , he revealed that the government received 100 applications from Malay Malaysians between 2001 and 2005.

Of this, 10 percent was approved, four percent rejected while the rest are being studied.

In a written reply to Teresa Kok (DAP-Seputeh) in the Dewan Rakyat, he said a total of 9,788 applications were received for the same period. Of this, 7,443 applications were approved.

As for the racial breakdown, he said the government received 1,436 applications from Chinese Malaysians (75.5 percent approved, 0.8 percent rejected and 23 percent being studied).

There were 1,509 applications from Indian Malaysians (51.3 percent approved, 2.9 percent rejected and 45.8 percent being studied).

Relevant documents

For the other races, Radzi said 6,743 applications were received, 82.7 percent was approved, 0.7 percent rejected and 16.6 percent being studied.

However, the minister did not have the statistics for a breakdown according to religion.

On the applications being studied, he said this was because the applicants did not submit the documents requested by the National Registration Department.

"The applicants have been informed via post to submit the documents and as long as there is no feedback from them, the application cannot be settled," he added.

Teresa had wanted to know how many people had applied to have their names changed on the identity cards on religious grounds.