Clarifying the false claim that Angola has banned Islam Some of you may have read in the last few days that Angola has outright banned Islam and that it is now illegal to be a Muslim in the Southern African nation. This however is not true. The news that has been spreading like wildfire is simply a case of people believing anything that they hear and then repeating it because it sounds unbelievable. The problem is that people seem to care little about fact-checking or confirming news from proper sources. The story was first printed 4 days ago by a Moroccan newspaper called La Nouvelle Tribune which is run by the son of a Communist Moroccan politician. The newspaper stated that the governor of Luanda had spoken against radical Muslims and stated that they are not welcome in Angola. It then quoted Angolan politician Roza Cruz as stating that Islam has not yet been approved by the Angolan Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, and that mosques would therefore be closed until further notice. The first thing to note about this article is that the politicians name that was quoted is actually Roza Cruz e Silva, not Roza Cruz which the newspaper got wrong. Second is that no other official is named, and that the statement about Islam not being recognised is not something new but has always been the case. What recognised means is that the government of Angola does not officially recognise Islam as a religion, which may sound odd but is not that odd considering that Italy, France and many others countries also do not recognise Islam at an official level. It simply means that the government does not interfere nor officiate on any matters in the religion. It does not mean that the religion is illegal or that it is banned. As for the claim that mosques are closed, this is not true and can be confirmed by Muslims in Angola. It seems that Roza Cruz e Silva was either referring to a specific mosque/s or that she never said this at all and the newspaper made it up. Until now the newspaper is the only source of the quote, and considering that they managed to misspell her name I would not put much faith in them. The article then lastly claimed that the minaret of a mosque was dismantled last year and that a mosque (possibly the same one) was destroyed. It does not say why it was destroyed, however it must be noted that it happened LAST YEAR. What happened after the initial story however is where we see the dangers of spreading unverified information. The few pieces of information in the article were mixed up and exaggerated, until the story had took an entirely new direction. Stories were claiming that Islam had been banned in Angola, and that mosques were ordered to be destroyed, and that being a Muslim was now illegal. Photos were shown of mosques being destroyed, however all the photos were from Palestine and not from Angola. Eventually a fake quote attributed to the President and before long the story spread like wildfire. After doing some fact-checking it was made clear that Roza Cruz de Silva was only speaking about a few Muslim groups who were on the list of proscribed religious groups that would not be allowed to operate mosques, some of which were built without permits. The list contains 194 groups from all religions, yet only a few are Muslims. So it was not true that all mosques would be closed, nor were there orders to destroy any mosques, nor is Islam illegal in Angola. Please everybody, stop sharing this story as it is not only not true, but suggests that we are not dedicated to checking facts and repeating sensationalised claims. If you have shared the story delete it and clarify that you had not checked the veracity of the story to try and ensure that others do not repeat it.
Posted on: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 08:22:10 +0000
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