Adventists Address Fake News on Alleged Muslim Ban on Ghana Campus

By: Marcos Paseggi/Adventist Review & ANN Staff

Seventh-day Adventist leaders in Ghana released a letter addressed to an online media outlet in the African country, to counterclaim a false report about an alleged Muslim ban on an Adventist college campus. Signed by Solace Yawa Asafo, communication director of the Adventist church in Southern Ghana, the May 19 letter asks the Kasapafmonline news outlet to post a retraction and issue an apology for a story local Adventist leaders say was “calculated at damaging the image of the college and its relations with the Muslim community.”

The story, posted by Kasapafmonline, involves the Seventh-day Adventist College of Education at Asokore, in Ghana’s eastern region. The article’s author states the church-operated school had imposed a ban on Muslism students on campus. Attributing its sources to Muslim students, their parents, and the Eastern Regional Chief Iman, the report said students were temporarily banned from exercising their religious rights on campus.

The story soon went viral, and was reposted online by national online outlets such as Ghanaweb, Accra Fm, and others.

Adventist Leaders Respond

In an official response, regional leaders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church wrote, “The authorities of the college wish to state that the story is false and a fabrication.” They also made clear that “[the school] has not banned Muslims nor any other group from expressing their beliefs and exercising [the] same on its campus.”

The school also called for an urgent meeting with Alhaji Yusif Sullimana, the Eastern Regional Chief Iman, and the leaders of the Muslim Students Association on campus, who confirmed the story had been fabricated by one of the outlet’s reporters.

In their response letter, regional church leaders reminded Kasapaonline and others reading the release that the Seventh-Adventist Church and its institutions are advocates of religious liberty. “[Our church] has had very cordial relations with all religious bodies since its establishment in Ghana in 1888,” they said.