The Tortuous Road to Citizenship

For ethnic Chinese Indonesians, the new citizenship law has not eased the process of obtaining IDs.

August 1, 2006

THE government official at the Kamal subdistrict office in West Jakarta frowned as he viewed a list of ethnic Chinese names. He had been staring intently at the list for over two minutes before turning to Neni (not her real name), who stood before the man nervously. You belong to the Chinese ethnic community, dont you? he asked. She nodded, the names of her close relatives appeared on the Family Card the official was holding. Each of the names be

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