Elderly People Denied Malaysian Citizenship Due To Poor BM Proficiency, But Is It A Fair Criteria For All Applicants?
Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution said most elderly applicants fail to get Malaysian citizenship because they fail to speak the national language proficiently.
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One of the criteria for Malaysian citizenship is being proficient in the national language, Bahasa Malaysia.
It is this factor that has caused many elderly applicants to be rejected from obtaining Malaysian citizenship.
According to Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail, one is the failing mark and eight is the passing mark in the language proficiency test set by the ministry.
Saifuddin said right now the ministry sometimes passes people who scored a two.
Two meaning when you say ‘terima kasih’, they can reply ‘sama-sama’, or when asked ‘apa khabar’, they can respond with ‘khabar baik.’ We lowered the benchmark to that level.
Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail
He added that there are seniors who are too fluent in a foreign language to the point that they can’t speak Bahasa Malaysia at all, but the ministry still tries to help them.
To date, Saifuddin said they approved 10,381 applications in the last 10 months. A bulk of the cases involved adopted children or children born out of wedlock.
Priority was given to these cases because, without citizenship, these children would not be eligible for free healthcare.
Saifuddin was responding to a question by Barisan Nasional’s Tanjung Piai MP Datuk Seri Wee Jeck Seng who asked why the approval process for some citizenship applications took a long time.
During the Parliament session, he also denied a claim made by Gabungan Rakyat Sabah’s Tawau MP Lo Su Fui that a million people in Sabah had yet to receive their legal documents.
Saifuddin said he had not seen any documents that showed the number throughout his time in the ministry, but to let him know if they come across these cases.
If the affected applicants have fulfilled all criteria but were still not approved, their cases may be referred to the minister directly.
Why do these people not have Malaysian citizenship?
There are various reasons why people who lived in Malaysia for years do not have official citizenship status here.
Under the Constitution, anyone born before Merdeka Day (31 August 1957) must be able to speak in Bahasa Malaysia to qualify for citizenship.
However, conversing proficiently in the national language also depends on learning opportunities.
For some of them, they did not get to go to school back then to learn the language due to poor economic backgrounds and more. This usually happens to those who live in rural areas in Malaysia.
Meanwhile, there are also “unique” cases whereby both parents are Malaysians but the child was given a permanent resident status and holds a red Identification Card because they were born abroad.
Some children in these situations applied for Malaysian citizenship for many years, but still get rejected until they’re nearing retirement age.
I'm just going to leave this here: Basar Paru, a former border scout, defended Malaysia during the communist insurgency and the confrontation with Indonesia.
— emmanuelsamarathisa (@esshimself) October 24, 2023
He died last year as a stateless man despite applying for citizenship countless times. https://t.co/XUwMajxxK9 pic.twitter.com/bU4CnSoQYo
This is bullshit, Saifuddin. Elderly people did not have access to good education and were victims of pecah dan perintah.
— neddo khan (@neddokhan) October 24, 2023
Kalau nak berbalah yang Bahasa Melayu ni mudah, mana-mana yang dah berumur tu cuba belajar bahasa baru. Tengok senang ke tak.
…if you’re not a legal Malaysian citizen, you can’t access Malaysian public education bah. Kan? So y’all make laws to exclude stateless Malaysians from public edu and society, but shame them for not being proficient in BM? How u expect them to learn it? Through osmosis, is it? https://t.co/sKEohxAdzt
— Doh Nyawen (@BeeBalan) October 24, 2023
Exactly why stateless in East Malaysia are so impacted simply because their mother tongue isn't BM.
— Esma (@EsmaR998) October 23, 2023
And it's sad for OA who are stateless for having to prove that they are native to the land. https://t.co/6CWseEdxYv
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