NRD lodges report after being accused online of leniency when granting citizenship to foreigners

PUTRAJAYA, Sept 9 — The National Registration Department (NRD) today lodged a police report against several social media accounts that falsely accused the agency of discreetly granting Malaysian citizenship to foreigners.

In a press conference today, NRD director-general Datuk Ruslin Jusoh warned the public against spreading unverified information on social media such as accusing the NRD of being lax in granting citizenships.

“Today, the NRD made a police report with regard to allegations by several social media account owners, especially on Facebook and Twitter, who accused the NRD of granting MyKad to foreigners.

“We want the Royal Malaysian Police to conduct a thorough investigation into this accusation, as the information posted on social media is not true at all,” Ruslin said.

He said that the NRD on its part, had issued several statements clarifying the accusations spread on two particular cases.

Ruslin said that in the first case, an old 2015 claim resurfaced, in which photos of five MyKads supposedly owned by male Chinese citizens were shared online, accusing the NRD of fast-tracking the approval for their applications.

However, he said that the men were actually involved in a document forging syndicate in Sabah, and the case was referred to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) in 2015.

“However, this issue is still being played up by certain social media account holders.

“Secondly, is with regards to the accusation that a female Chinese citizen is holding a blue identity card (IC), which was recently also spread on social media. I want to clarify here, that the woman in question is married to a Malaysian citizen and she had applied to get a Malaysian citizenship, based on Article 15 (1) of the Federal Constitution, and based on her qualifications, she was given citizenship.

“However, a lot of questions were raised by the public, that it is so easy for the NRD to grant citizenship to foreigners.

“Actually, it is not as easy as is being said, whereby in the case of the woman, she was married to a Malaysian for almost 20 years, and she also had a MyPR, that is a permanent residency status, issued by the NRD,” Ruslin clarified.

He said the NRD does not vet applicants based on their ancestry or the countries that they hail from, when processing Malaysian citizenship applications.

“In fact, we are guided by the rules under the Federal Constitution, especially the National Registration Act. Therefore, there is no such issue that the NRD grants citizenship to foreigners easily,” he added.

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