Jakarta – Malls decked out in festive red and restaurants offering special delicacies for the upcoming Chinese New Year are cold comfort when one's citizenship is still questioned, Chinese-Indonesians say.

It is the grievance of about 30 women grouped in the Poor Tionghoa Women Organization, who discussed their problems Wednesday with former president Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid at Nahdlatul Ulama headquarters on Jl. Kramat Raya, Central Jakarta.

The women asked Gus Dur to help in pressing the government to scrap persistent discriminative administrative policies in obtaining birth certificates, ID cards, family card and a citizenship certificate (SBKRI).

"None of these women present here have identification cards," said Rebeka Harsono from the Indonesian Antidiscrimination Foundation (LADI), who accompanied the women during the media briefing.

"The officials make it very difficult for them. They have to pay at least Rp 350,000 (about US$35) if they want to have their religion of Buddhist or Christian printed on their ID card. And it is even more expensive for those who do not have the SBKRI. They have to pay at least Rp 500,000 for the card."

The discriminative treatment, much of it dating back to the anti-Chinese sentiment following the 1965 abortive coup, violates Government Regulation No. 29/1999 ratifying the 1965 International Convention on The Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, Rebeka said.

Indonesians of Chinese descent account for approximately 3 percent, or around six million, of the country's 215 million people.

Although the prevailing stereotype is of Chinese-Indonesians as affluent, the women in the group are from the low-income bracket. They said the lack of necessary citizenship cards prevented them from receiving government assistance in tough economic times. "I cannot get cash assistance from the government because I don't have the card," one of the women, Neng Tina, said.

Then president Soeharto issued Presidential Decree No. 56/1996 annulling a decree making it mandatory for ethnic Chinese to have the SBKRI.

Two years later, his successor B.J. Habibie issued a decree ordering government officials to treat all Indonesians the same. In 1999, he renewed the call by issuing a decree banning discrimination against Indonesians based on their origins. However, almost a decade after the abolishment, lower-level civil servants still demand the document, Rebeka said.

It was during Gus Dur's presidency after Habibie that Chinese-Indonesians were allowed to practice their faith and culture in public. His successor, Megawati Soekarnoputri, made the Chinese New Year a national holiday in 2002.

In responding to their grievance, Gus Dur said the government should establish a team to ensure the citizenship certificate was no longer demanded. He also advised the women to take their complaint to the House of Representatives.