DAP strongly admonishes the government’s stubborn decision to proceed with its appeal against the recent High Court decision allowing Malaysian women to confer citizenship on their overseas-born children, placing them on an equal basis with Malaysian men.

According to DAP Secretary-General Lim Guan Eng, the High Court had rightly decided that depriving Malaysian women of this automatic right was wrong. Such denial constituted an act of gender discrimination, and violated basic human rights as outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

There is no reason why children born to Malaysian mothers abroad should be discriminated against and not accorded the right to citizenship in this country.

Further, Lim added that granting fathers this right but denying mothers the same made a mockery out of Ismail Sabri’s Malaysian Family concept. If the Attorney General refuses to withdraw this appeal, Ismail Sabri as the Prime Minister should speak up and make it crystal clear to the former that he is different from past Prime Ministers.

However, until now, Ismail Sabri has stayed silent on the matter despite ensuing public outrage that followed his government’s decision to appeal the High Court’s ruling.