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Govt officially reinstates Arcandra's Indonesian citizenship
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Then energy and mineral resources minister Arcandra Tahar enters his official car after attending a meeting at the Office of the Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister on Aug. 9. (Antara/Akbar Nugroho Gumay)
F
ormer energy and mineral resources minister Arcandra Tahar has officially had his Indonesian citizenship reinstated, following controversy over his dual nationality last month, Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly has confirmed.
The reinstatement was declared through a ministerial decree issued by the Law and Human Rights Ministry on Sept. 1, which said that based on verification of Arcandra's renouncement of his US citizenship on Aug. 15, the maximum protection principle and the 2006 Citizenship Law that forbade anyone to be stateless, the government declared that Arcandra was an Indonesian citizen.
"He is not a foreign citizen anymore and by adjective law he was not an Indonesian citizen. Thus we only needed to reinstate his citizenship through a ministerial decree," Yasonna said in Jakarta on Wednesday.
Arcandra gained US citizenship in 2012. Under Indonesian law, Arcandra automatically lost his Indonesian citizenship, which should have been followed by a ministerial decree to officially annul his citizenship.
The decree had yet to be issued, Yasonna said, adding that Arcandra renounced his US citizenship shortly after being offered the position of energy and mineral resources minister.
Issuing a decree to revoke Arcandra's Indonesian citizenship once the issue became known in August, which led to his dismissal, would have made him stateless. "If I had issued a decree [annulling Arcandra's Indonesian citizenship] I could have faced three years' imprisonment for deliberately causing someone to be stateless," Yasonna explained. (ags)
