UMNO Youth chief Dr Muhamad Akmal Saleh has lambasted DAP for its sneaky demeanour of organising a statelessness programme which apparently has received widespread backlash with claims that it is an attempt to provide Malaysian citizenship to mainland China migrants.
The event scheduled to be held on June 30 in Johor has been postponed, according to Stulang state assemblyman Andrew Chen Kah Eng whose service centre organised the programme in a Facebook posting yesterday afternoon (June 8).
‘I want to ask all DAP leaders seen in the posters on the citizenship application programme what programme is this when JPN (National Registration Department) has issued a statement that it is not involved in the event.,” he chastised the so-called UMNO ally in a recent FB posting.
“As this is a programme so sensitive to Malaysians, I wish to know if the programme is intended to hold Bahasa Melayu classes to facilitate the obtainment of citizenship.
“You’ve rejected wholesomely the learning of Bahasa Melayu (in schools) but when it comes to application for citizenship programme, you can’t even wait for JPN’s approval first.”
Meanwhile, opposition-slant political activist Nurul Islam Mohamed Yusoff has revealed that the programme which has been conducted “in the entire Penang state is now being extended nationwide”.
“Many people in (Bagan MP) Lim Guan Eng’s constituency have already obtained citizenship,” claimed the PAS Ampang candidate in the 2018 national polls.
“What surprised me is the FB page of Yeap Choon Keong (DAP Penang’s citizenship programme director) has generated quite an impressive figure of three cases receiving approval in March 2024, five cases (April 2024) and six cases (May 2024).”
Below is a more in-depth commentary from a Malay nationalistic stand-point on the matter from Nurul Islam which perhaps DAP has overlooked in its good-intended exercise:
As far as I know, the process of applying for citizenship is a painful and long process. How can the Penang DAP citizenship director do it so quickly and efficiently?
Is the Malaysian citizenship up for sale? But the strange thing is that he “helped” all the Chinese. Let’s assume that most of the non-citizens are all Chinese.
Maybe you are thinking like me since when did the DAP take over the work of JPN? Is there a special approval accorded by the Madani government?
I don’t have an answer to that. You guys can ask the Home Minister as the (FB) posts (by Chen) made numerous mentions of the Home Minister’s name as well as thanking him for his cooperation.
The minister has to answer because this is an issue of national sovereignty. We shouldn’t allow political parties to meddle with Malaysian citizenship”. – June 9, 2024
