Shiloh
Editor, Senior Moderator
Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/indonesia-denies-further-hajj-restrictions-amid-mers-concerns/
Indonesia Denies Further Hajj Restrictions Amid MERS Concerns
By Dessy Sagita & Arientha Primanita on 8:36 pm July 17, 2013.
...Indonesia, already stinging from a 20 percent reduction in hajj pilgrims this year, has no plans to introduce additional restrictions on candidates. The Ministry of Religious Affairs already bars the chronically ill from completing the pilgrimage. Anggito Abimanyu, the ministry?s director-general of hajj and umrah, called the warnings a mere recommendation.
?From all I know it is a recommendation,? Anggito said. ?We are not obliged to follow it. Everyone who is on the list will go on hajj this year?
Some 168,000 Indonesian Muslims will make the pilgrimage to Mecca this October, completing what will be, for many, a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Islam?s holiest site. Indonesia has the largest hajj quota in the world, but waits in this Muslim-majority nation can still stretch to more than a decade.
For hundreds of pilgrims, the trip to Mecca is a perilous one. Last year, 382 Indonesian died during the pilgrimage. Most of them were older than 60 years old...
Indonesia Denies Further Hajj Restrictions Amid MERS Concerns
By Dessy Sagita & Arientha Primanita on 8:36 pm July 17, 2013.
...Indonesia, already stinging from a 20 percent reduction in hajj pilgrims this year, has no plans to introduce additional restrictions on candidates. The Ministry of Religious Affairs already bars the chronically ill from completing the pilgrimage. Anggito Abimanyu, the ministry?s director-general of hajj and umrah, called the warnings a mere recommendation.
?From all I know it is a recommendation,? Anggito said. ?We are not obliged to follow it. Everyone who is on the list will go on hajj this year?
Some 168,000 Indonesian Muslims will make the pilgrimage to Mecca this October, completing what will be, for many, a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Islam?s holiest site. Indonesia has the largest hajj quota in the world, but waits in this Muslim-majority nation can still stretch to more than a decade.
For hundreds of pilgrims, the trip to Mecca is a perilous one. Last year, 382 Indonesian died during the pilgrimage. Most of them were older than 60 years old...