KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 30 — Several top lawyers and activists have today urged the government to drop proposed amendments to the Constitution, which they call "cruel” and would create a vast new class of stateless persons.

In a statement on the eve of Merdeka Day, the group said that the government’s claim that these amendments are necessary to prevent security threats is simply not true as there is no evidence to support this claim.

"The government’s proposed amendments to the Constitution are nothing short of cruelty, done under the wrong-headed notion that stateless persons are a security issue. They are not. They are hapless individuals who have fallen through the bureaucratic cracks of the administration,” they said in a statement.

It was co-signed by former Malaysian Bar president Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan, former Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission chief Latheefa Koya, child rights activist Datuk Hartini Zainudin, and Development of Human Resources in Rural Areas’s director for social protection Maalini Ramalo.

The group also warned that the proposal to remove Section 1(e) of the Second Schedule of Part 2 of the Constitution would have a devastating effect on individuals rendered stateless due to the circumstances of their birth.

"Infants and children will be punished from birth. This proposed amendment flies in the face of the reason for its original incorporation into the Constitution. This history is important,” they said.

The quartet noted that the original 1957 Constitution granted citizenship to anyone born on Malaysian soil under the principle of "jus soli.” An amendment was then introduced in 1962 requiring that at least one parent must be a citizen to confer citizenship on a child.

They explained that Section 1(e) was introduced to prevent the risk of rendering individuals stateless with this new requirement but this safeguard is now under threat and its removal would create a new underclass in the country, leaving them unrecognised and systematically excluded from full participation in society.

The lawyers and activists also expressed concerns about the proposed removal of Section 19B of the Second Schedule Part 3, which would strip abandoned children or orphans of their right to citizenship.

"It will undo the Federal Court’s reasoned and progressive decision to protect foundlings from statelessness. These are not the only amendments that are being proposed; the right to citizenship of permanent residents is also to be removed, making children of those who permanently reside here now potentially stateless as well,” they said.

In July, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said that proposed constitutional amendments would be presented to the Conference of Malay Rulers, referring to the amendments that would solve the citizenship problems plaguing the overseas-born children of Malaysian women with foreign husbands.

However, the lawyers and activists argued that "it is counter-productive that the government intends to resolve one aspect of statelessness, whilst at the same time creating a large new class of stateless persons”.

The group also questioned the justice in denying children born out of wedlock and withholding citizenship from those who have known no other home but Malaysia.

"But what sin does a child born out of wedlock bear that they are to be denied a future? Why must abandoned babies and orphans be punished by the government for events they have no control over? What justice is there for those who have only known Malaysia to be their home and yet are denied citizenship?” they asked.