76,000 stateless people apply for naturalization
76,000 stateless people apply for naturalization
JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Justice Oetojo Oesman says 76,000
stateless people of Chinese descent have applied for Indonesian
citizenship since free naturalization services were introduced
nationwide last December.
Oetojo told reporters yesterday that, of the total
applications, his office has evaluated the documents of 53,000
applicants, 21,000 of which would soon be submitted to the State
Secretariat for final evaluation and approval.
He did not explain to what stage the remaining 23,000
documents had been processed.
The service was introduced in line with a recently-issued
presidential decree on naturalization, which offers Indonesian
citizenship to people of Chinese descent who lost their
citizenship when Indonesia cut diplomatic ties with China in
1969.
According to the Ministry of Home Affairs' records, there are
currently about 208,000 stateless people of Chinese descent
living in Indonesia.
Oetojo said his office planned to increase the speed with
which the documents are processed, from the current 2,000
applications per day to 6,000 documents.
"Our manpower and facilities are still limited," he said,
adding that the ministry also planned to add to its manpower
force and facilities in order to meet the demand. He did not
specify further.
Oetojo also said his office would continue the program until
all stateless people of Chinese descent could be served.
West Java has received 6,000 applications from the total 9,000
stateless Chinese in the province.
If the applications are approved, the provincial
administration stands to lose about Rp 250 million (US$110,600) a
year from the special foreigners tax that it has been collecting.
In Central Java, the provincial administration set up a "one-
stop service" in every regency office to facilitate the
processing of applications. A total of 5,000 Chinese in the
province have applied.
People of Chinese descent used to have to pay between Rp
350,000 ($153) and Rp 1 million for naturalization. (imn)