Saudi Gazette report DAMMAM — Need an appointment with a European embassy to obtain a Schengen visa? Then be ready to pay SR1,500 or more to a broker, who will arrange this appointment for you. The brokerage for the Schengen visa has come to the fore, particularly over the past few days when more and more people were traveling to Europe to spend their summer vacation. According to Makkah daily, travel and tourism offices have failed to fix dates for their customers with the embassies to submit their visa applications and do the necessary fingerprinting so the clients resorted to brokers to do this for them. A number of experts considered this to be against Islam and to be an exploitation of the need of some people to reach the European embassies. "Travel and tourist offices have failed to fix dates for their travelers with the European embassies so they resorted to independent brokers to do this for them shelling out high fees," said Abdul Wahab Al-Qahtani, a professor of strategic management in King Fahd University for Petroleum and Minerals. He considered the money paid to the brokers to arrange dates with the European embassies to be a bribe which is strictly forbidden in Islam. "The intermediaries exploited the need of the travelers to have earlier dates with the embassies so they started raising their charges," he said. Qahtani said a number of brokers disappeared in thin air after taking money from the travelers. He asked the concerned government departments to install a hotline to inform about such cases and to check if the broker is authorized by a travel agency or not. Khloud Al-Shihri, a Saudi woman who was desperate to have an appointment with a certain European country, said she had to pay SR5,000 to a travel agency to fix her a date with the embassy to do the required fingerprinting. "For three months I was desperately trying to fix a date with this European embassy but when I failed, I resorted to paying a bribe," she said. Saud Aba Al-Khail, a Shariah professor, described this process to be a form of forgery which is prohibited in Islam. "This is entirely against Islam even if the traveler had no other means of reaching the embassy," he said. Tarik Fadak, a Shoura Council member, asked for a probe into the issue and said the Foreign Ministry should move fast to close this window. Osama Nuqali, spokesman of the Foreign Ministry, said granting visas is a sovereign decision of the European countries and not the Kingdom which is only hosting their embassies. He said the ministry is making efforts with many countries to facilitate granting of visas to Saudi citizens and shorten its procedures time. "We have succeeded in negotiations with the US to ease the procedures and to grant a five-year valid visa to the Saudis. We have also been able to obtain a 10-year-visa to Britain," he said. The spokesman said negotiations were still continuing with some Schengen countries to ease visa procedures for Saudi citizens.
