Six months on, stateless e-sports athlete still in limbo

Stateless e-sports athlete Muhammad Aiman Hafizi Ahmad’s citizenship status is still in limbo after nearly six months since his case caught Youth and Sports Minister Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman’s attention.

Now, with his 20th birthday coming in August, child rights activist Dr Hartini Zainuddin said Aiman has a shrinking window of opportunity to resolve his citizenship status before the application process becomes more difficult.

“He (Aiman) is stateless. He was supposed to represent Malaysia on three different occasions, but no citizenship. So how to get a passport?

“We’re ridiculous! We give citizenship to a non-Malaysian footballer but not a talented gamer who was born in Malaysia,” she said on Twitter today, without giving names.

Her comments came after Kosovar footballer Liridon Krasniqi (below), who plays for the Johor state football team, had received his MyKad of Feb 3.

Hartini explained that Aiman was born to an Indonesian mother in Malaysia, who didn’t want the child and disappeared.

Aiman was then raised by adoptive parents. But without his biological mother, Aiman is unable to claim Indonesian citizenship, hence leaving him stateless.

His application for Malaysian citizenship was already rejected once, and he was told the second application was incomplete.

“No one told the family what papers needed to get submitted. Or why the application was rejected in the first place,” she said.

She added that this year would be Aiman’s last chance to apply for citizenship under Article 15A of the Federal Constitution, after which the application process would become more complicated for Aiman.

Article 15A of the Constitution stipulates that the federal government may register any person below 21 years old as Malaysian citizens in “special circumstances as it thinks fit”.

When contacted, Hartini told Malaysiakini that the application process typically takes at least two-and-half years to receive a response, but new procedures are in the works that would reduce this to one year.

The National Registration Department would not allow him to apply for citizenship under Article 15A if he is 20 years old, she said.

Hartini said Aiman has been discouraged by the setbacks he faced due to his stateless status. He has been benched by his team since he could not attend training abroad to hone his skills.

The e-sports news portal What’s the Meta had highlighted Aiman’s plight on Aug 29 last year.

According to the report, Aiman is part of the e-sports team Arov E-sports, which plays the game PUBG Mobile.

It had qualified for the PMCO Fall Split Southeast Asia League to be held in Shanghai, China, that year, but Aiman had to drop out of the competition due to documentation issues.

He had likewise sat out of the previous year’s competition.

At the time, the What’s the Meta report garnered attention from both Syed Saddiq (below) and his deputy Steven Sim, who both pledged to help.

Hartini told Malaysiakini she had also engaged with Syed Saddiq on Aiman’s plight six months ago, but nothing has happened since.

Meanwhile, in response to Hartini’s tweets about Aiman’s plight, Syed Saddiq reiterated his readiness to help.

“I’ll do my best,” he said on Twitter, while directing his officers to get details on Aiman’s case as soon as possible.

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