The government of Angola has reacted angrily to reports that it had outlawed the practice of Islam and begun to destroy the country’s mosques.
Reports have been circulating throughout Middle Eastern media that the southern African country had become the first state to ban Islam, many featuring a statement said to be from the country’s President, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, in which he hailed the move as “the final end of Islamic influence in our country.”
As early as last Friday, Morroccan paper La Nouvelle Tribune had reported on the ban, and quoted the Angolan Minister of Culture Rosa Cruz as saying that “The process of legalization of Islam has not been approved by the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights. Their mosques would be closed until further notice.” India Today also published the quote, with Silva reportedly claiming the ban was necessary since Islam is “contradictory to the customs of Angolan culture.”
But the International Business Times has cast doubt on the claims, quoting a number of Angolan officials as denying the existence of such a ban. One unnamed source at the Angolan Embassy in Washington DC, who requested annonymity due to the “sensitivity” of the topic, said that “The Republic of Angola … it’s a country that does not interfere in religion.”
The source added: “We have a lot of religions there. It is freedom of religion. We have Catholic, Protestants, Baptists, Muslims and evangelical people.” He also pointed out that the country’s president could not have made the comments attributed to him as he had been “out of the country” at the time, and said that he could not find any record of the comments purportedly made by the Minister of Culture either.
A second unnamed government official also denied the reports, claiming that the first he heard of it was from the media. “At the moment we don’t have any information about that. We’re reading about it just like you on the Internet. We don’t have any notice that what you’re reading on the Internet is true,” he cautioned.
Claims the country had actually begun demolishing mosques in response to the ban have also not stood up to close scrutiny after a number of the photos circulating, purporting to be from the scene of such demolitions, were revealed to be several years old, and not even taken in Angola.
Angola’s population of 16 million is predominantly Christian, with only 80,000-90,000 Muslims, the majority of whom are migrants from West Africa and families of Lebanese origin.
