2,000 Chinese gain citizenship

2,000 Chinese gain citizenship

SEMARANG: As many as 2,000 people of Chinese descent in Central Java have gained Indonesian citizenship and will soon take an oath before the Minister of Justice here.

More than 8,000 Chinese people in the province applied for citizenship following a presidential order last year to speed up the process of naturalization, Kristanto, who heads the team to oversee the naturalization in the province, told Antara.

Those whose application for citizenship have been approved must first undergo a crash course on Pancasila, the state ideology, and pass the test.

He said the administration originally counted 12,845 Chinese descendants in the province, but many women automatically won citizenship when they married Indonesians. (emb)