The party also described as invalid the national security justification used by home minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail for the proposed tightening of the citizenship law.

“Citizenship is a fundamental human right,” a Muda statement said. “There is no correlation between granting citizenship to stateless people and national security.” Muda said.

One of the more contentious proposals was an amendment which would strip foundlings, such as abandoned children or orphans, of their right to citizenship, which drew criticisms from rights NGOs and former minister Shahrizat Abdul Jalil.

Separately, Muda acting president Amira Aisya Abd Aziz called for transparency in the granting of citizenship, demanding the government provide detailed information on the status of every application.

She also said that the government should provide grounds for applications which are rejected.

“There is no transparency on how the ministry decides the grounds on which to approve or not,” she said at a forum in Kuala Lumpur. “High-profile cases are usually prioritised. But what about most of the (low-profile) applications? Their voices are unheard,” she said.

She also said that the government should abandon the issuance of green identity cards, known as MyKAS, to stateless children, as the temporary status would further put them in limbo.

“What do they mean by a temporary identity card? Are the holders only allowed to stay for a while and wait for the government to kick them out of the country?,” she said, adding that stateless people had nowhere to go.