Immigration told to stop non-govt sponsored pilgrims
Immigration told to stop non-govt sponsored pilgrims
JAKARTA (JP): Immigration has been ordered to prevent people
from departing for Saudi Arabia if they are not government-
sponsored Haj pilgrims.
Some 14,000 people are believed to have made arrangements for
the pilgrimage with unlicensed tour operators in Indonesia and
Singapore and the Saudi government has warned the Indonesian
government that these people may be deported on arrival.
Minister of Religious Affairs Tarmizi Taher said yesterday
that he had asked for the Ministry of Justice's cooperation in
preventing these people from leaving the country.
The Ministry of Justice oversees the Directorate General of
Immigration.
A record 157,000 pilgrims this year are traveling under
special issue brown passports to distinguish them from the green
passports of ordinary travelers.
In the past, the so called "green passport" pilgrims were
tolerated because their numbers were small and the number of
Indonesian pilgrims traveling under the government program was
also still below the maximum of 170,000 set by the Saudi
government for Indonesia.
Non-official pilgrims have become a flourishing business for
innovative tour operators who provide the package cheaper than
the Rp 6.9 million charged by the government. They also offer
additional perks, such as combining their trip with visits to
Europe.
The government program uses planes chartered by the national
carrier Garuda Indonesia. The tour operators use scheduled
flights.
This year the number of Indonesian pilgrims has nearly hit
quota, stretching the facilities provided by the Saudi
authorities for Indonesians.
Riyadh last week pressed Indonesia to control green passport
pilgrims and warned that they might be subject to deportation on
arrival.
It was not immediately clear how the 14,000 pilgrims had
obtained visas from the Saudi embassies.
Tarmizi said the government was concerned with ensuring that
the available quota goes to people who travel under the
government's pilgrimage program.
He also recalled that many green passport pilgrims last year
met with some problems because some of the facilities normally
accorded to pilgrims were denied to them.
Green passport
The order to prevent green passport pilgrims from leaving the
country was taken to spare them from being deported by the Saudi
authorities, he said.
He said many of them had booked their tours with illegal
operators out of ignorance.
Tarmizi made his comments yesterday after a meeting with
Minister of Information Harmoko, who will be this year's
Amirul Haj, the head of the Indonesian haj contingent.
Meanwhile, a former legislator questioned the basis of the
Saudi threat to deport the green passport pilgrims, saying that
the move may be unwise, the Antara news agency reported.
T.H.M. Saleh said many of these pilgrims may be Indonesians
who are working or studying overseas and will be making the trip
direct from there.
"What about these people. Would they also be deported?" asked
Saleh, formerly representative of the United Development Party
faction. "Where would they be deported, since they did not come
from Indonesia?" (01)