Non-Muslims in Sabah in a limbo
By Michael Kaung, Free Malaysia Today
KOTA KINABALU: Many non-Muslims in Sabah are living in a limbo. In their birth certificates, there is no indication of their religion or citizenship status. In the space for citizen and religion columns it is stated “maklumat tidak diperolehi” (information not available).”
A former researcher and analyst who only wanted to be known as Steve, says that there is a big need for improvement as data gathered by federal government departments is hopelessly and perhaps willfull wrong.
The root of the problem, he says is that right from the beginning departments like the National Registration Department (NRD) failed to gather accurate information about citizens or others who do not fall into the category of Muslims.
He said that when he recently scrutinised government forms he was surprised that the forms failed to provide for the large population of non-Muslims in Sabah who were simply bracketed “information not available” group.
He said this is abuse is because of the inconsistency in the birth certificate application forms for Sabah and Peninsular Malaysia.
Relating his experience, he said: “On May 20, the place I was staying was burned down. As a consequence, I lost all my personal documents including the original copies of my birth certificate and MyKad.
“On the same day, I went to the Penampang Police Station to make a report and was told to collect the type-written report on May 23 which I did.
“From there I went straight to the Fire Department and obtained a confirmation letter from the officer in charge and then proceeded to the NRD, Penampang Branch to apply for a replacement of MyKad and birth certificate.
“There was no problem with my MyKad application as everything went smoothly and I obtained a temporary identity document.
I was asked to collect the MyKad in one month’s time.
