SAMNET

Category: Press Releases

  • Census Trial 2021

    02 September 2020

    AWARENESS OF POPULATION SIZE IS IMPORTANT

    SAMNET URGES ALL MUSLIMS TO COMPLETE THE LATEST STATS SA CENSUS TRIAL 2021
    BEFORE THE DUE DATE ON 6 SEPTEMBER 2020

    The discussions and statistics around the number of Muslims who have contracted Covid and sadly demised due to Covid, has once again focused the attention of the Muslim public on the total Muslim population in SA. In the last Census, religion was not included as an indicator, despite strong lobbying for the inclusion of religion in population statistics by the South African Muslim Network to Stats SA.

    It is important for us to know the population of Muslims in the country for the following reasons:

    • Allocation and distribution of resources for future planning
    • For demographic purposes when building Mosques or applying for permits/consent to build certain religious places.
    • For organizations involved in providing relief for Muslim communities
    • For people to be able to plan ahead for the community/family
    • To know the geographic distribution of Muslims
    • For conservation purposes
    • For business and marketing planning
    • To monitor and identify communities in need
    • To ensure sustainability by keeping populations stabilized
    • To be able to keep track of immigrants and drastic changes in the country’s population
    • Allocation of Hajj visa numbers are dependent on size of the Muslim community
    • Proper statistics would assist each religious grouping to track their own religious groups and allocate resources etc. appropriately.

    The South African Muslim Network is currently trying to collate information that we have at the moment so that we may work together with other organizations to formulate a more realistic picture of the total population of Muslims. It is also important, for example, in trying to get airtime on SABC platforms for religious programming dependent on the size of the population for future television, community TV and radio licenses.

    According to the 2002 South African Yearbook, the Religious population percentage sizes were
    recorded as follows:

    Christianity – 75, 49%
    Muslim faith – 1, 39%
    Hindu faith – 1, 35%
    Judaists – 0, 17%
    African traditional belief – 0, 04%
    Other faiths – 0, 48%
    Uncertain –  21, 07%
    TOTAL – 100%

    The current population of South Africa is 59,389,738 as of Tuesday, August 11, 2020, based on
    Worldometer elaboration of the latest United Nations data. Of this population, we can estimate roughly based on the statistic depicted in 2020 that the population size of Muslims is about 1.7 % and the estimated population size is about 1 009 626 Muslims in South Africa. It is crucial that we all complete census studies so that we can have a more accurate picture of our numbers and geographical spread.

    REGISTER AND GET COUNTED TODAY

  • Religious Intolerance – Banning the Call to prayer

    23 August 2020

    The “AZAAN Judgement”

    The South African Muslim Network notes the poor judgement handed down in the case related to the stopping of the Azaan in Isipingo. We have unambiguously expressed the disappointment of our community with the poor judgment in various mainstream media interviews and the fact that it needs to be and will be appealed right to the Constitutional court if necessary.

    While we are all appalled by this decision and the Islamophobic nature of the applicants’ mentality, we should not be responding, whether on social media or against other faith groups, in a way that is not befitting our Islamic teachings or the example of our Prophet Muhammed (Peace be upon him).
    Our experience over the past five years of managing the Mosque Open days which serve the purposes of addressing the misconceptions and ignorance about our religion, has shown us that education and dialogue in a friendly environment is much more conducive to building mutual respect and acceptance than denigration of other people’s faiths and resorting to vulgarity. We cannot stress enough the importance of having these Mosque Open days as a forum for dialogue and education.

    The SAMNET 2019 National Mosque Open Day hosted over 2000 participants across six provinces with 45 Mosques registered. People of all faiths (or none), cultures and ethnicities visited the Mosques in their communities for a two hour programme. Words such as kindness, warmth, sincerity, friendliness and understanding came up frequently as feedback from participants who left the mosque with a better understanding of Islam, a sense of community and more accurate information and understanding.

    We need to keep the doors open for dialogue at all times while at the same time sparing no legal effort to ensure that our religious rights are protected and Islamophobes taken to task within the ambit of the law. We urge more Masaajids to join the SAMNET NATIONAL MOSQUE OPEN DAY campaign so that we can have a national footprint of masaajids that all people can visit and learn from.

  • COMPLAINT – THE WITNESS NEWS

    04 August 2020

    ATT : THE PRESS COUNCIL OMBUDSMAN

    RE: LETTER OF COMPLAINT AGAINST MISLEADING ARTICLE IN THE WITNESS

    The South African Muslim Network (SAMNET) identified a rather misleading photograph featured in an article on the front page of The Witness Newspaper online on the 4th August 2020.

    HEADLINE: ‘Alarm Raised At ‘Disproportionate’ Covid Deaths Among Sa Muslims.’

    We would like to point out the following:
    1. The picture featured is not from South Africa, as we do not have crowds like the one displayed in this photograph.
    2. This is a pre-corona picture that shows people in mass without PPE and standing shoulder-to-shoulder.

    The picture is completely misleading and gives the impression that this is what the Muslim community is doing in violation of the laws and social distancing. It gives the impression that the Muslim Community could be a source of a Covid 19 epidemic, literally. In an atmosphere of ISLAMOPHOBIA and viral transmission of photographs and fake news, this maligning picture can lead to increasing Islamophobia. We think that this is disingenuous and that is grossly misrepresenting the community and the circumstances of something as sacred as the Eid Prayer. It would have been very easy for the newspaper and the author to contact Muslim Organizations for comment on and to get an appropriate picture. There are numerous organizations, even in Pietermaritzburg, that could have been asked for an appropriate picture that is current in Covid conditions.

    We believe that The Witness should have a full front-page apology as this is such a gross violation by the author (Niyanta Singh) and they deserve to be fined and sanctioned so a clear example is made for them not to have a picture that is so damning. Furthermore, the article gives the impression that this view is widely held by the community, when in fact, it was a view expressed in a closed Zoom meeting within a small circle of participants and that in itself is misleading in the article.

    Kind Regards
    Dr F.Suliman
    SAMNET