The authorities in Rakhine State are collecting an advance list of the people who are to be covered under the new citizenship verification scheme to be conducted in the state. The advance list was collected in Kyauk Phyu, Myebone and Poneagyun townships starting from 7 June, but as the questions on race and religion of the people are not included in the questionnaires the plan is running into trouble. The government has started to issue National Verification Card (NVC), which are in green color, to Muslims living in Kyauk Ta Lone internally displaced camps in Kyauk Phyu township from 7 June. U Kyaw Hla Aung, a former political prisoner and Rohingya rights activist, commented on the Government’s new plan on citizenship verification. He said, “I tried to keep faith in this government. But this government is same as its predecessors. Now they are issuing green cards, as it is not in the 1982 Citizenship Law, I can say it is an unlawful act. The reason why they omitted the race and religion is to discard the Rohingya ethnicity. We are citizens of this country, not immigrants came in illegally. If they want to give any citizenship card, they have to give us pink (full citizenship) card. No one from the government has explained beforehand”. The plan to issue NVC cards in Poneagyun Township was halted after a protest for not omitting the race and religion questions. The Director of Rakhine State Immigration Department U Win Lwin said the citizenship verification would be done according to the 1982 Citizenship Law. According to that law, if both parents are citizen their child will automatically become citizen. But if the parents are naturalized citizen, the child might not become a citizen. He added that the department would do according to the existing rules and regulations.