'Birth cert should not be hidden citizenship agenda'
Published on: Friday, October 31, 2014
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KUALA LUMPUR: Opposition PKR hopes the proposal to issue birth certificate to stateless children is not a covert method to eventually grant them citizenship and which, in turn, will worsen the security situation in the State.Expressing grave concern over the plan by Home Minister Datuk Zahid Hamidi, Penampang MP Darell Leiking said:"While Malaysia is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Children and must be humane in considering giving education opportunity to all stateless children, this must be done with a specific guideline."
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Leiking said under the blanket of "wanting to be humane", Sabah is flooded by immigrants from the Philippines with some 81,000 issued with the IMM13 as admitted by the government three years ago.He added that the Government cannot continue to deny the feelings and suspicions of many genuine Sabahans on how these IMM13 have been abused and re-abused by immigrants to eventually obtain citizenship, besides the notorious Project IC in Sabah.
"With this new proposal to issue birth certificates to stateless children, I cannot help but express the fear and concern by the genuine people of Sabah that another round of demographic engineering will happen."This Government must guarantee to the people of Sabah that those given the proposed 'Birth Certificate' can never become citizens of Sabah and that the abuse we have seen with IMM13 will never happen again," he said.
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Leiking also noted that the completed Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on illegal immigrants in Sabah had yet to be publicised despite being handed over to the Agong in May and the assurance that the government would table the report in Parliament during the current session."I have been reliably informed that among the many problems identified in the RCI is that these illegals with Identification Cards who have been here without any control have far outnumbered genuine Sabahans!
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"If this is true, this is indeed a serious security threat and we have even been informed publicly by Esscom that there are those so-called 'citizens of Sabah' who have abetted and are working together with foreign intruders."Despite all this, we are now discussing granting birth certificates for 'education purposes' to children of illegal immigrants," he said.Leiking asked if it is not "inhumane" to deprive genuine Sabahans the truth and to have allowed the demographic engineering all these years.He said there are thousands of genuine Sabahans, especially those from the interior, who have been deprived of proper birth certificate and education simply because the Government never reached out to them.Through the initiative of Tan Sri Richard Malanjum and his team of judges and court officials, it was a relief to know that many of these genuine and legitimate Sabahans were reached out to for birth certificate processing via the Mobile Court."It is for these reasons that I seek the assurance from the government that the same methodology via the Sabah Judicial Officers should be utilised if the government's plan to issue the certificates takes off."At the same time, this government should immediately seek diplomatic solution with the country of origin where these stateless children's biological parents had come from so that these countries will eventually absorb these immigrants to their country," he said.Leiking said there are schools run by foreign missions, especially the Indonesian-run schools, providing education to children of illegals.That alone, he said, seemed to indicate that these countries of origin acknowledged these people as their citizens and that should be the basis for the Malaysian government to put a firm commitment to these countries of origin to repatriate their citizens, especially stateless children.
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"I warn the Government not to rush into this without using their conscience and without first considering the security aspects. We in Sabah are now facing a clear and present danger with the sheer number of new citizens and illegal immigrants in Sabah."Make a clear guideline and policy that this birth certificate this government is about to launch will never be a path to citizenship," he said.