VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Religious Affairs Minister Yaqut Cholil Qoumas - 

Religious Affairs Minister Yaqut Cholil Qoumas said the government had decided to cancel the 2021 haj program due to soaring COVID-19 infections.

“This is a bitter pill that we have to swallow. The sole reason behind the cancellation is that we have placed the safety of our pilgrims as the top priority. I hope the pandemic will end soon,” Yaqut told a press briefing on Friday.

Indonesia is continuing to see a soaring number of daily infections, averaging over 5,000 cases nationwide, with only a slight decrease to 4,824 cases on June 1.

Meanwhile, the top 10 contributing countries to the annual pilgrimage are also seeing a resurgence in COVID-19 transmission. India, for example, recorded 132,788 cases on June 1, while Iraq recorded 4,170 daily cases and Iran 10,687 cases on the same date.

Neighboring Malaysia recorded 7,105 cases on Tuesday and is now in lockdown. This is the second time that Indonesia, the country with the largest Muslim population in the world, is not sending its nationals on the haj due to the pandemic. Yaqut said the government’s decision was in line with Law No. 8/2019 on haj and umrah, which stipulates public health, safety and security as primary considerations for the government before it issues any decisions related to religious pilgrimages.

He said the decision was taken following a series of consultations with relevant stakeholders, including House of Representatives Commission VIII overseeing religious affairs, the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) and the foreign, health and transportation ministries. “We will communicate this message to the public so they can also understand,” Yaqut said.

“The Saudi government has yet to invite all relevant governments to talk about the haj. So to date, no country has been informed about their haj quota,” he added.

The minister also said that potential pilgrims who had completed their haj payments would be automatically included on next year’s haj program, while the government would reimburse any pilgrims who wanted to cancel.

“The pilgrims’ money is safe. Please beware of any fake news or hoaxes that say otherwise,” Yaqut said.

Separately, lawmaker Hasan Basri Agus from the Golkar Party faction has thrown his support behind the decision to cancel this year’s haj program.

He said Riyadh had sent a clear signal by not announcing the haj quota. Earlier, House Deputy Speaker Sufmi Dasco Ahmad suggested this was likely because the vaccines Indonesia used were not on the Emergency Use Listing (EUL) issued by the World Health Organization (WHO), and that this had made the Saudi government reconsider.

“If this is true, we should learn from this lesson. We are not going to discuss this [further] until we know for sure,” the Gerindra Party lawmaker said as quoted by detik.com.

Indonesia’s mass vaccination program primarily uses the Sinovac vaccine, which was only added to the WHO’s EUL on Tuesday//JP