The Penang government has appointed five citizenship assistants to work with stateless persons, to help them apply for Malaysian citizenship.

Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng said each district within the state would be represented by an office which is responsible for collection of data to facilitate the application.

Lim said the problem does not only involve the Indian ethnic community.

"Although the issue of citizenship is under federal purview, we will take the first steps to assist them," said the DAP secretary-general, in a press conference today.

He added more details will be announced on Nov 15.

Statelessness not a race issue

The CM was speaking after a meeting on the issue of statelessness was held in Komtar, attended by Deputy Chief Minister II P Ramasamy, state executive councillor Law Choo Kiang, Ipoh Barat MP M Kulasegaran and assemblypersons RSN Rayer, and A Thanasekaran.

Penang Hindu Sangam chief G Shamugan, lawyer and state Wanita DAP vice-chief K Mangleswary, were also present at the meeting.

In May, the PKR-led Selangor government moved to register hundreds of people who were born in the country but remain stateless.

Although those who turned up to register were predominantly from the Indian community, a sizeable number of red MyKad-wielding Chinese also showed up.

Earlier, in Dec 2011, a government task force under the Prime Minister's Office had registered 14,882 ‘stateless' people, predominantly from the Indian community.

Advisory panel on statelessness

Meanwhile, an advisory panel led by Kulasegaran with Shanmugam and Mangleswary, has been formed to tackle the issue.

p ramasamy 160211 Ramasamy ( right ), who is also Batu Kawan MP, said that the issue of statelessness is a "national problem and tragedy".

Ramasamy said that while there is no official or actual figure for the phenomena, the numbers must be sizeable.

He added that recently PKR vice-president N Surendran claimed that there are around 300,000 stateless Indians in the country.

"However, the problem affects all communities including the Chinese, Malays and Indigenous people as well," he stressed.

Kulasegaran said that the issue had been raised in the DAP's central executive committee meeting, and the party acknowledged the importance of it.

"Such serious problems need government intervention although this is a federal matter," said Kulasegaran.

"We hope other states especially states administered by Pakatan Rakyat, will follow what we do now....this is not a racial but a social issue," he added.