100 stateless people seek Indonesian citizenship

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)