‘TAKE AWAY MAHATHIR’S CITIZENSHIP’

By : ATHI SHANKAR

GEORGE TOWN: The government should revoke Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s citizenship for betraying the nation by executing an illegal “Project IC” in Sabah, suggested Selangor DAP leader S Ramakrishnan.

He said the former prime minister deserved to be stateless for wrongly granting citizenship and voting rights to illegal immigrants in Sabah during his tenure.

The Selangor DAP committee member said Mahathir’s deceitful role in executing the illegal, unscrupulous and irresponsible covert operation in the Borneo state had brought disrepute to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).

He said Malaysians were irked after the royal commission of inquiry exposed the former premier’s 20-year key role in issuing blue identity cards to undeserving illegal immigrants.

“Mahathir betrayed all Malaysians by giving citizenship and instant bumiputera status to illegal and unqualified immigrants.

“If anyone should be stripped off his citizenship it is Mahathir,” insisted Ramakrishnan, who heads Selangor DAP bureau for Ex-Plantation Workers and Urban Poor chairman, in a statement here today.

The former Senator said Mahathir had deliberately failed to resolve the stateless status of thousands of qualified Malaysian-born ethnic Indians and Chinese during his premiership.

As a result, he said some 300,000 non-Malays, especially ethnic Indians, were waiting until today to get blue identity cards and be granted their rightful citizenship rights.

However, he said the Mahathir instead granted citizenships to illegal Muslim immigrants from the Philippines, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and even India merely to expand Umno and Barisan Nasional vote bank.

He rebuked Mahathir for attempting to justify his act of betrayal by criticising the country’s first premier Tunku Abdul Rahman for granting citizenship to a million legally qualified ethnic Indian and Chinese residents of Malaya.

He reminded that the one million ethnic Indian and Chinese residents were given citizenship as a pre-condition to the independence granted to Malaya by British.

Historically, he said Indians and Chinese have sacrificed a lot and, slogged with blood and sweat to develop Malaya then and Malaysia now.

He recalled that Mahathir himself once even said that 90% of taxes were paid by non Malays. But, he said Mahathir, Malay supremacist organisation Perkasa and hardliners in Umno have now conveniently forgotten the contributions by non-Malays.

“To Mahathir, Umno makes the law and everybody else shall just follow regardless how unjust the law could be.

“Even until today, Mahathir keeps spewing venom and racially instigating statements to divide the country by race and religion,” chided Ramakrishan. (FMT)