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)