20,000 to cancel haj pilgrimage

JAKARTA (JP): About 20,000 prospective pilgrims have threatened to cancel their haj pilgrimage if the municipality does not scrap its numerical system for grouping pilgrims.

Under a regulation issued for next year's haj, pilgrims are to be grouped according to lists provided by banks and not on family or affinity connections.

The chairman of the Communication Forum of Instructors and Consultants for Haj Pilgrims, Anwar Sanusi, said yesterday that 20,000 prospective pilgrims would cancel their pilgrimage participation if the municipality does not scrap the regulation.

"The issuance of the new regulation by the city's religious affairs office has created confusion among Moslems," he told reporters after visiting the city council's United Development Party faction.

About 2,000 haj instructors from five mayoralties staged a rally in front of the religious affairs office in East Jakarta Tuesday to protest the new regulation.

Anwar said that the system would cause spouses to be separated during the pilgrimage. The instructors would also be separated from their charges, he said.

Anwar said that the total number of prospective pilgrims in Jakarta was 23,000. (ind)