A number of news outlets have reported that the Southwest African nation of Angola has "banned" Islam and started to dismantle mosques in a bold effort to stem the spread of Muslim extremism.
Weekly French-language Moroccan newspaper La Nouvelle Tribune published an article on Friday sourcing "several" Angolan officials, including the country's 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." The media reports did not describe why exactly Islam apparently faces a need to be legalized despite having had a presence in the country for many years.
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 report 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."
Even Angola's President José Eduardo dos Santos, has weighed in on the controversy, as he was quoted in Nigeria's Osun Defender newspaper on Sunday as saying that, "This is the final end of Islamic influence in our country," according to the OnIslam.net report.
Cruz and Santos' reported comments echo the stance of the governor of the country's Luanda province, Bento Francisco Bento, who reportedly maintains "that radical Muslims were not welcome in Angola and that the government was not ready to legalize the presence of mosques in the country," according to a La Nouvelle Tribune summary of Bento's take on the issue.
In a physical extension of the officials' sentiments about Islam's place in Angola, La Nouvelle Tribune reports 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 emerging reports about Angola "banning" Islam and dismantling mosques point to the virile anti-Islam sentiments held by many in the nation's citizens, but they could not immediately be independently verified by International Business Times.
Angola is a majority-Christian nation of about 16 million people, an estimated 55 percent of whom are Catholic, another 25 percent of whom belong to African Christian denominations, another 10 percent of whom follow major Protestant traditions, another five percent of whom belong to Brazilian Evangelical churches and of whom only a small minority of between 80,000 and 90,000 are Muslim, according to the U.S. State Department.
Angola 'Bans Islam', Dismantles Mosques, According To News Reports
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