For stateless, all roads to legality lead to Putrajaya

The PKR push to obtain for the stateless documents legitimising their status drew a blank in Alor Setar yesterday when a group of 100 red MyKad holders were told their quest would have to go right up to the Home Ministry for resolution.

PKR vice-president N Surendran, central leadership council member Lateefah Koya and MP for Kuala Kedah Ahmad Kassim arrived mid-morning with the band of the stateless, drawn from parliamentary constituencies in the state, at the Registration Department in the Kedah capital.

Closely monitored by some 30 police personnel and Rela members, the group gathered at the entrance to the department to lobby their case for legalisation of status.

Save for dramatisation of their cause, the gathering did not gain a modicum of success for their mission to lift themselves out of the limbo of statelessness - a twilight world in which access to education, healthcare and work are routinely denied them.

Registration Department director Muhammad Pauzi Abdullah met with the PKR officials who had organised the gathering, but he refrained from assuring them the department would facilitate the process of their legalisation as citizens.

"From what he told us, the decision to grant them blue MyKads would have to be made by the home minister at Putrajaya although these people already qualify for it," said Surendran, who is leading the drive to secure citizenship documents for the stateless.

Fast-track to citizenship

The overwhelming majority of the stateless in Peninsular Malaysia is Indian, amply reflected by their preponderance in the group that trooped to the Registration Department yesterday.

Surendran has been leading the PKR campaign to collate the number of stateless on the peninsula and push for their legalisation as citizens.

PKR has been locked in dispute with MIC over the actual numbers of stateless in peninsula Malaysia, with the BN partner contending that the figure does not exceed 45,000 while PKR places the total at four times the MIC estimate.

PKR adviser and Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim has described the situation as scandalous and pledged that under a Pakatan Rakyat administration, the stateless on the peninsula and in Sarawak would be fast-tracked to citizenship.