Angola denies ban of Islam

Angola became a hot topic in the international media over the weekend, as news outlets around
the world wrote about reports that the Southwest African nation had banned Islam and had
begun to dismantle mosques.
But an official at the Angolan Embassy in Washington, D.C., who did not want to be identified
while discussing the sensitive matter, said that there is no such ban, and that the reports are
erroneous.
“The Republic of Angola … it’s a country that does not interfere in religion,” the official said via
telephone Monday afternoon. “We have a lot of religions there. It is freedom of religion. We
have Catholic, Protestants, Baptists, Muslims and evangelical people.”
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News of Angola’s supposed ban on Islam originated in the African press, which went so far as to
quote the nation’s president and minister of culture offering statements that suggested the
premise of the reports was accurate.
A second official at the Angolan Embassy in the U.S. reiterated that the diplomatic seat has not
been made aware of any ban on Islam in the country.
“At the moment we don’t have any information about that,” the official told IBTimes via phone
on Monday. “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.”
A close examination of some of the initial reports about the supposed ban and dismantling of
mosques reveals some suspect findings. One such discrepancy is that a Google Images search
shows that a photograph published by numerous news outlets this month that purportedly
depicts the minaret of an Angolan mosque being dismantled in October 2012 had been used at
least as early Jan. 23, 2008, when the Housing & Land Rights Network posted it to illustrate an
article about the destruction of Bedouin homes in Israel.
The officials at the Angolan Embassy in Washington could not attest to the veracity of the
comments attributed to officials in Angola seemingly affirming the Islam ban, which outlets
including IBTimes had referenced in initial stories on the reports published over the weekend.
Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos reportedly weighed in on the controversy, as he was
quoted in Nigeria's Osun Defender newspaper on Sunday as saying, "This is the final end of
Islamic influence in our country," according to a report by the website OnIslam.net , which was
accompanied by the suspect photo supposedly depicting the Angolan mosque’s minaret being
dismantled in October of last year.
“The president has been out of the country for a week,” the first Angolan Embassy official
mentioned above said, contending that as such he could not have made the remarks as they
were reported.
Weekly French-language Moroccan newspaper La Nouvelle Tribune published an article on
Friday sourcing "several" Angolan officials, including the minister of Culture, Rosa Cruz, who
reportedly offered the following remarks, which have been translated from French: "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."
OnIslam.net reports that the African economic news agency Agence Ecofin wrote that Cruz
made the statement at an appearance last week before the 6th Commission of the National
Assembly. The website goes on to note that, "According to several Angolan newspapers, Angola
has become the first country in the world to ban Islam and Muslims, taking first measures by
destroying mosques in the country."
The first Angolan Embassy official denied knowledge that Cruz had made such comments.
“I cannot confirm if the Minister of Culture said that. I cannot find that in our press,” the
official said.
La Nouvelle Tribune also reported that a minaret of an Angolan mosque was dismantled last
October, and that the city of Zango "has gone further by destroying the only mosque in the
city." The Embassy officials could not authenticate either of these claims.
Angola is a majority-Christian nation of about 16 million people, of whom an estimated 55
percent are Catholic, 25 percent belong to African Christian denominations, 10 percent follow
major Protestant traditions and 5 percent belong to Brazilian Evangelical churches. Only 80,000
to 90,000 Angolans are Muslim, according to the U.S. State Department .