Will local Muslims be able to acquire Saudi Arabian visas for hajj next year?

This is the question looming over the local Muslim community following an incident where the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service confronted Saudi Arabian diplomat, Fawaz Abdul Rahman Alshubaili.

Several officers visited Alshubaili, who was a visiting official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Riyadh, at his room at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Port of Spain, on Monday evening based on what they claim was an anonymous tip and found him in possession of several Trinidad and Tobago passports.

According to Hajji Ahyub Hosein, a local pilgrimage group leader from St Joseph, acquiring a visa in Trinidad and Tobago to visit Saudi Arabia to perform hajj has always been a challenge for many Muslims and Alshubaili was there in an official capacity to help.

He said in the past Saudi Arabian diplomats visited this country to deliver the visas to the Muslim community. However, the service was stopped due to negligence, Interested Muslims had to either fly to Caracas, Venezuela, or the United States to acquire the visa.

However, Hajji Ayoub said after much pleading to the Saudi Arabian government by Patrick Edwards-the Trinidad and Tobago High Commissioner to Uganda and Kampala -the service was reintroduced.

As a result of the reintroduction, Alshubaili was the first Saudi Arabian government official to deliver 207 visas to Muslims in T&T.

’There is no communication between National Security, Foreign Affairs and Immigration ... if there was, this whole incident could have been avoided. But because authorities don’t know to check their information before, we have to pray that the Saudi government does not think negatively about us,’ Hajji Ayoub said.

President of the Trinidad Muslim League, Azid Ali, added that while the actions of the police were understandable, ’the whole thing was very unfortunate, not only for the Muslims, but the country at large’.

’We were so happy when we heard (Alshubaili) was coming because it meant that there was going to be an ease in the visa process. The Saudi government extended this service for us; they opened up their e-mails so we could forward the information from the passports, but now, the whole thing has blown out of proportion,’ he said.

According to Ali, staff at the hotel must have become suspicious, but they should have called the people who booked the two rooms for the diplomat if they were so concerned.

’I just hope that this does not tarnish our efforts for next year, the Saudi government was really trying to facilitate us by putting things in place, so I really hope we don’t get tarnished,’ he said.