Angola Denies Banning Islam, Demolishing Of Mosques

Angolan government representatives have rejected reports that Angola had become the first country in the world to ban Islam and Muslims as false. According to Connor Adams Sheets, a senior reporter with the International Business Times, an official at the Angolan embassy in Washington DC said the reports were erroneous.

He confirmed this on Cii Radio’s Sabahul Khair this morning. The unidentified official also asserted the South West African country’s respect for all faiths. “The Republic of Angola is a country that does not interfere in religion,” an official at Washington’s Angolan Embassy said on November 25. A second official reiterated that they [the Angolan Embassy in the US] were not aware of any ban on Islam in the country.

“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,” the official said.

Mufti Ismail Menk has also released a statement regarding the claims. It read, “Upon verification from Angolan scholars it was found that the story of Islam being banned in Angola is completely fabricated.

Sadly, the demolition of all structures that were built without proper documentation, planning and procedure was carried out. This happened to include some religious structures too, amongst them a Masjid.”

The demolition of the Masjid had been carried out last year because it had not received building approval. It was not destroyed last month and was not targeted because it was a Muslim place of worship as news reports have alleged.

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 reports were in fact accurate.

The Angolan president was quoted as saying, “This is the final end of Islamic influence in our country.”

The president was not in the country and therefore could not have made the remarks as has been reported.

A Cii Radio investigation has however established that the Angolan government has long been under fire from human rights organisations over its restrictions on religious freedoms.

While Angola’s constitution and law prohibit discrimination based on race, gender, religion, disability, language, or social status, it has been consistently established that the government has not been effectively enforcing these prohibitions.

According to the US State Department’s International Religious Freedom Report for 2012, religious groups in Angola must petition for legal status with the justice and culture ministries.

Legal status affords religious groups the right to act as juridical persons in the court system, secures their standing as officially registered religious groups, and allows them to construct schools and places of worship.

By law, a religious group must have over 100,000 members and be present in 12 of the 18 provinces to gain legal status. Religious leaders must provide information on their group’s doctrine or philosophy, organizational structure, and physical location.

The US state department reported that the government had not granted legal status to any Muslim groups. Over 2,000 organizations reportedly continued to operate without legal status. The government generally permitted these organizations to exist, function, and grow without legal recognition.

The report when on to chronicle how Muslim group leaders reported restrictions on the free practice of Islam because the government did not recognize Islam and selectively intervened to close mosques, schools, and community centers.

“Although government officials asserted the government protected religious groups without legal status and did not have a policy to close mosques or other Islamic facilities, there were several reports of local authorities closing mosques or preventing their construction,” the report alleged.

Police allegedly destroyed the mosque’s foundation at one location, directing the group to build elsewhere. When construction began at the new site, however, police again reportedly demolished the work and told the group that it could not build a mosque at all.