Pm Orders Ministry To Register Stateless People

PM orders Interior Ministry to register stateless people

BANGKOK: -- Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has instructed the Ministry of Interior to register stateless people of all groups so that legal identifications and nationality could be issued and granted to them.

The prime minister told TNA after chairing a meeting of the National Security Council (NSC) here yesterday that the meeting discussed strategies to address the problem of non-status people in the kingdom.

"Everybody who lives in the Thai kingdom on a permanent basis must have legal identifications in accordance with their status-group, like hilltribe, and must be granted the Thai nationality if their qualifications meet the state's required criteria", stressed the Thai leader.

"I've instructed the Interior Ministry to survey and register these people so that they will be granted the legal identifications and nationality", he said.

The NSC earlier announced that it had finalized a long anticipated bill to grant Thai nationality to people born without it.

The bill will be submitted to the cabinet for an approval soon.

Legal immigrants are anxious to see the bill approved.

A university lecturer, Namkhang Tang, said that she had been waiting all her life to get Thai nationality.

She said she now hoped to exercise her right to vote at the next general election on 6 February.

To keep her teaching job, Ms. Namkhang said she had to renew her residential permit at her home province of nothern Tak Province every three months.

Thai nationality will enable her to be officially listed as a lecturer.

Kittiphong Sillapajaroenwong, an engineer, said he was going to celebrate until the bill is passed into law.

Mr. Kittiphong said he could not even buy a house for his mother because he did not have Thai nationality.

--TNA 2005-01-13