100 stateless people seek Indonesian citizenship

JAKARTA (JP): More than 100 stateless people in the Tegal Alur slum in Cengkareng, West Jakarta, have appealed to the government to grant them Indonesian citizenship.

Esther Indahyani Jusuf, executive director of Solidarity of Nations, an organization that fights against discrimination, said on Friday the stateless people had been living in the area of Cengkareng for years.

Many of them were born there and have given birth to their children there, she added.

"But the year these people began living in the slum area is not exactly known."

All of the stateless people are Chinese migrants who lead meager lives here. Most of them are laborers, fishermen or vendors, she said.

"These people are stateless but they have taken part in every general election, always being ordered to vote for Golkar," she told The Jakarta Post.

As of today, these stateless people are still targets of extortion every time they deal with government officials, such as when they have to process their identity papers, she said.

According to Esther, Government Regulation No. 1/1950 on citizenship and Law No. 62/1958 on ethnic origins stipulate that migrants from eastern Asia who do not actively reject Indonesian citizenship are regarded as Indonesian citizens, without having to acquire an Indonesian citizenship certificate.

She said, however, that her organization has listed 63 discriminative regulations on citizenship issued after 1965. She has proposed the revocation of the regulations to the Ministry of Justice, but no action has yet been taken.

She suspected the regulations were the reason why these residents of Tegal Alur remained stateless and uncertain about their status.

The stateless people were some of the 208,820 Chinese migrants registered by the Ministry of Home Affairs in 1992, following the signing of memorandum of understanding between Indonesia and China on the revocation of China's claim over the citizenship of the migrants.

The Indonesian government then offered the Chinese migrants the chance to choose between Indonesian and Chinese citizenship. Of the 208,820 migrants, 150,000 of them applied for Indonesian citizenship. As many as 110,000 of these 150,000 obtained Indonesian citizenship through a presidential decree, while 40,000 were rejected because they failed to meet certain requirements.

However, Esther questioned the government's rejection of these 40,000, saying their applications fulfilled all administrative requirements.

The government issued Presidential Instruction No. 6/1995 on accelerating the process for applying for citizenship, but this failed to help the stateless Tegal Alur residents obtain Indonesian citizenship.

Solidarity of Nations, along with a number of non-governmental organizations, will bring the issue of discrimination in Indonesia to the World Conference Against Racism and Related Intolerance in Tehran, from Feb. 17 to Feb. 21. (01)