UN recognises IMM13 – Shafie

Shafie at the parliament building yesterday. Behind him is Sepanggar member of parliament Datuk Mohd Azis Jamman.

KOTA KINABALU: Chief Minister Datuk Seri Panglima Mohd Shafie Apdal yesterday questioned the need to recognise Burung Burung or Sijil Banci documents for non-Malaysians.

He directed his query to Minister of Home Affairs Dato’ Seri Hamzah Zainudin in the Dewan Rakyat, saying the Burung Burung and Sijil Banci were not legitimate compared to the IMM13.

“The IMM13 is recognised by the United Nations (UN); Burung Burung and Sijil Banci are merely papers. How can the government take these as a solution?

“There are approximately 30,000 to 40,000 IMM13 holders, as opposed to the hundreds of thousands of Burung Burung and Sijil Banci holders. Surely we do not want to legitimise what is illegitimate,” Shafie said.

He was referring to stateless children, many of whom were abandoned by their parents at an early age and grew up in Malaysia without proper identification documents.

Shafie emphasised the need to “be human” in terms of solving the issue, as the stateless individuals could not be “sent back” as they did not have a hometown, nor do they know of any relatives.

“These children are getting older, if we were to send them home where would that be. They have no home or families in the Philippines or Indonesia. So, I hope the government will come to a solution, we cannot keep prolonging this issue,” he said.

Shafie, who is Semporna member of parliament, said the problem had long existed even when he was a cabinet minister before this, adding that serious attention must be given to the matter as these children who have no guardians were roaming and living off the streets.

In response, Hamzah said what mattered was to ensure the stateless individuals had some form of identification to continue staying in this country, if no other documentation could be given.

“If you are looking at the human factor, let this be settled in a way so that we know the status of the parents of these stateless individuals, so that we know what documentation to provide, instead of simply handing it out. It is not easy for just anyone to have citizenship in this country.

“That is what should be evaluated, and not just hand out citizenship to stateless individuals. The important thing is that we know their status so that we can issue the appropriate documentation.

“They are citizens of the world. They are still human. That is why we want to ensure they have some form of identity in this country,” he said.

The IMM13 is one of the documents issued to Filipino citizens with refugee status, in addition to several other documents such as the Census Certificate issued during the Federal Special Task Force whitening programme and the Kad Burung-Burung issued in the 1970s until the 1990s.

The issue over citizenship and stateless children, attracted the attention of several Sabah and Sarawak MPs as they stood up to ask questions and urged the government for solutions to the problem.

Hamzah, who answered the original question posed by Dr Kelvin Yii Lee Wuen (PH-Bandar Kuching), said parents and guardians of these stateless children or individuals whose citizenship and status have not been determined, need to submit valid documents to the government before their citizenship application could be approved.

He said to address the issue, he was in Sabah recently to find out what was happening especially on matters related to the IMM13 document as well the Kad Burung-Burung and Census certificates.

Datuk Azizah Mohd Dun (Bersatu-Beaufort) in her supplementary question asked the number of citizenship applications under Article 15A of the Federal Constitution which are still outstanding from 2015 to date, and the number of applications from Sabah.

Hamzah informed that from 2015 to June 30 this year, a total of 31,494 citizenship applications were received and of that number, 28,211 are being processed.
A total of 9,388 applications were processed and registered in Sabah, he said.

Several other MPs including Datuk Zakaria Mohd Edris (Bersatu-Libaran), Datuk Wilson Ugak Kumbong (GPS-Hulu Rajang) and Ma’mun Sulaiman (Warisan-Kalabakan) also stood up to ask questions but did not have the opportunity due to time constraints.

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