Hundreds of Kenya Muslims have been expressing increasing fears over possibility of missing the life-time journey to hajj this year due to controversial delays by the country's Immigration Department to issue or renew passports for would-be pilgrims.
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“My mother applied to renew her passport two months ago, but up now we are being taken round and in round in circles. She even passed the vetting process and was told to come and collect the passport, but until now, they keep telling to come the following day,” Fatuma Abdi, whose mum had sent her to check if the document is ready, told OnIslam.net.
“I don’t know if the passport will come out before the deadlines for visa application and airline ticket have expired.
I can’t imagine the possibility of my mum missing the Hajj. She was so excited to go this year after saving money for it. But the immigration officials don’t seem to understand the urgency,” she added.
Over the past weeks, Muslims like Abdi’s mother were forced to long waiting for the new procedures submitted by Immigration Department requiring the renewal of Muslims passports before getting hajj visa.
The situation has been made worse by the requirement that most people with Muslim names have to be “vetted” first to prove their nationality before being issued with the travel documents.
This year, Kenya's quota for pilgrims has been fixed at 4,000 by the Saudi Arabia government but travel agents have expressed fear that they may not fill that number thanks to the delays by the Immigration department.
The deadline for visa application in the Saudi Embassy in Kenya is 20th of this month while the last day that pilgrims are allowed into Makkah is 27th.
On his part, Hussein Ali Ahmed who had also come to check if the passport of her 60 year old mother was ready was so frustrated that he was almost giving up.
“I have been coming to the Immigration offices daily for the last two weeks but they keep telling me that they are still processing the application,” he said in exasperation.
“This is ridiculous. I am tired of coming here. I may just ask them to return my application documents. I can't take in anymore.”
Similar frustration was shared by Nasra Yusuf and her husband Mohammed Hussein, who are among the people awaiting “vetting”.
For them, the wait seems endless after immigration officials decided the process will be only be done once a week, that is every Wednesday. Those who miss out have to wait for the following week.
“We don’t like this vetting thing but if we must go through it why can’t they do it daily to make the process faster,” retorted Nasra.
“They need to understand that we want to go and fulfill our religious obligations of Hajj.”
Discriminatory
Muslim leaders complain that the unexplained delays and vetting requirements have created a huge backlog of would-be pilgrims who are still waiting to receive their travel documents.
“We are doing our best to convince Immigration officials to hurry this up, but they are not working as fast as they should,” Sharriff Hussein, the Deputy Chairman of the Kenya Hajj Mission, the umbrella body for all pilgrims from Kenya, told OnIslam.net.
“This so-called vetting process is unnecessary and highly inconveniencing to those going for Hajj. If some people fail to make the journey because of this bureaucratic procedure, then the religious rights of Muslims would have been breached badly,” he said.
Hussein indicated that systematic discrimination in the issuance of travel documents to Kenyans of Muslim faith was good evidence that Muslims enjoy equal rights only on paper but not in practical terms.
He said that although the vetting procedure was meant to prevent non-Kenyans from acquiring Kenyan citizenship, it has been abused by immigration officials to deny many Kenya Muslims travel and identification documents.
There are hundreds of thousands of immigrants and refugees living in Kenya, mostly from Somalia, and the Kenya government has often expressed concern that many of them are acquiring Kenyan citizenship documents illegally through corrupt immigration officers.
Two weeks ago, Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta appointed a new head of the Immigration Department and many Muslims are hoping that the new official, Major-General Gordon Kihalangwa (rtd), will reform the department and make it more efficient and respoinsive to the needs of Kenyans, including Muslims.
“We expect that the institutionalized discrimination against Muslims in the issuance of identification and travel documents will be set aside by the Department. Immigration officials need a through re-education to change their ingrained culture against Muslims,” said Deputy Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims (Supkem) Hassan Ole Naado.
Ole Naado wondered why the vetting requirement is imposed on almost all Kenyans with Muslim names, instead of applying it where there is reasonable grounds to doubt a person’s nationality.
Muslim leaders in the country have renewed their call on the Immigration Department to fast-track issuance of travel documents in good time to enable the pilgrim fulfill their religious obligations of undertaking the pilgrimage to the sacred city of Makkah.
Muslims from around the world pour into Makkah every year to perform hajj, one of the five pillars of Islam.
Hajj consists of several ceremonies, which are meant to symbolize the essential concepts of the Islamic faith, and to commemorate the trials of Prophet Abraham and his family.
Every able-bodied adult Muslim who can financially afford the trip must perform hajj at least once in a lifetime. /SR
