The controversy over reports that the southwest African nation of Angola had banned Islam and begun to demolish mosques took a new turn Tuesday when Manuel Fernando, director of the Angolan Ministry of Culture’s National Institute for Religious Affairs, denied both reported measures.
“There is no war in Angola against Islam or any other religion,” Fernando told AFP. ”There is no official position that targets the destruction or closure of places of worship, whichever they are.”
“The Republic of Angola … it’s a country that does not interfere in religion,” the official said on Monday afternoon. “We have a lot of religions there. There is freedom of religion.”
But the Angolan magazine Exame Angola reports that a mosque in Huambo was closed recently “under express orders of the police authorities of the province of Huambo.”
That came from a member of the mosque in question, which Exame reports is the 60th to be closed in Angola. All quotes from Exame referenced in this article have been translated from Portuguese.
The reports of mosques being dismantled have come under scrutiny, as a quick Google Images search shows that a photograph published by numerous news outlets this month that supposedly depicts the minaret of an Angolan mosque being dismantled in October 2012 had been published at least as far back as Jan. 23, 2008, when the Housing & Land Rights Network used it to illustrate an article about the demolition of Bedouin homes in Israel.
On Friday, the weekly Beninese newspaper La Nouvelle Tribune published an article quoting “several” Angolan officials, including Minister of Culture Rosa Cruz, who reportedly offered the following remarks, which are translated from the 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.”
And the website OnIslam.net cited African news agency Agence Ecofin reporting, “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 reports set off a massive surge of interest, as they spread across the world and eventually went viral, causing alarm among Muslims and jubilation by Islamophobes.
Source: The News Tribe
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