Category: Human rights

Witchcraft, Police, the MPLA and the murder of a traditional headman.

On May 14, the Provincial Court of Moxico, in Eastern Angola, delivered a landmark verdict against vigilante justice, based on accusations of witchcraft, which is prevalent in that region. Judge Pereira da Silva sentenced both the head of the ruling party, the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) for the municipality of Cangamba, Alberto Tchinongue Catolo, and a local traditional authority (Soba) Cangamba, António Kanguia Candimbo, to six years in prison, for ordering the lynching of Soba Augusto Chimbidi. The judge also convicted the municipal commander of the National Police in Cangamba, Manuel N’doje Ijita Cawina to two months in prison for his part in the witchcraft séance plot, which served to justify the mob assassination of Augusto Chimbidi. In his ruling, the judge concluded that the police commander did not take part in ordering the killing, but that he had prevented his police officers from stopping the […]

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Measures In Favor and Against Mosques in Angola

As an illustration of Maka Angola’s investigation into the treatment of Islam in Angola, here is a chronological list of measures taken by the government regarding Islamic practice in the provinces of Luanda, Lunda Norte, Zaire, Bié and Malanje. The last of these mechanisms were decreed on January 29, 2014 by the Luanda Provincial Court. With reference to Case no. 005713-C, the court ordered the temporary closure of the Nurr Al Islamia Mosque in the Mártires de Kifangondo area of Luanda, because of a dispute between two Imams: Diakité A’dama, a Malian, and Alhaji Fode, a Gambian. Created in 1995, the mosque is the second largest in Angola, large enough to accommodate over 1,500 worshippers. In his ruling, the judge emphasised that the Islamic Community of Angola (CISA) had a request for recognition under consideration by the Religious Affairs Department of the Ministry of Justice. This statement is incorrect. CISA […]

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Regedor Capenda-Camulemba Detido nas Lundas

Lisboa (Lusa) – O ativista e jornalista angolano Rafael Marques afirmou hoje à Lusa que a polícia angolana prendeu um chefe tradicional que foi sua testemunha no julgamento do processo Diamantes de Sangue, no qual responde por difamação. “Está detido desde as 09:00 (08:00 em Lisboa) no Comando Municipal da Polícia de Capenda Camulemba e quem me prestou a informação foi o próprio secretário” (do chefe tradicional), disse à Lusa Rafael Marques. De acordo com o jornalista e ativista de direitos humanos angolano, não foi formalizada qualquer queixa contra o soba Mwana Capenda ,que prestou declarações a um tribunal em Lisboa, este mês, em conjunto com Linda Moisés Rosa, outra testemunha de Rafael Marques no processo que o opõe a vários generais angolanos, que o acusam de difamação pelo conteúdo do livro “Diamantes de Sangue”. Além de serem testemunhas no processo judicial, os dois angolanos denunciaram abusos de direitos humanos […]

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Prison Riot in Viana: Four Dead, 65 Injured

A riot that broke out in Viana prison in Luanda, on Monday, morning left four dead and 65 people injured, 30 of them seriously, according to prison sources. Official reports quoted by the state news agency, Angop, so far acknowledge no deaths and only 52 injuries. A police source told Maka Angola that most of the injuries were sustained from gunshots, in a combined attack by the Rapid Intervention Police (PIR), Public Order Police and the prison services. “When the PIR arrived at the scene they started shooting the at detainees’ legs. Most of the wounds were sustained in the legs,” said the source, who preferred to remain anonymous. One prisoner, who for his own safety is identified only as “G”, explained what happened. “The disturbance is, in short, due to the two special annual visits that the prisoners have a right to, at Christmas and New Year. This year […]

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The European Commission’s Problem with the Truth on Angola

Recently, on November 19, the president of the European Commission, Mr. José Manuel Barroso, instructed the EU High Representative and vice-president of the Commission, Baroness Catherine Ashton, to respond on his behalf to queries on the detention of Angolan activist Nito Alves, a minor, and the charges brought against him. Mr. Barroso is a very well known and controversial figure in Angola, for his promotion of the first peace agreement in the country, in 1991, signed between President José Eduardo dos Santos, and his nemesis, the late rebel leader Jonas Savimbi. At the time, Mr. Barroso was the Portuguese minister of Foreign Affairs. He has since cultivated a close friendship with President Dos Santos, and has been favouring him in the international arena. President Dos Santos has been enlisting more senior Portuguese politicians to help him shield the corrupt deeds and human rights abuses of his government. In exchange, he […]

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Nito Alves: His Courage is our Salvation

By José Eduardo Agualusa   I have a 16-year-old son. When I read the news of the imprisonment of young Nito Alves, aged 17, I couldn’t stop thinking that this could have been my son. Some of my best friends were 16 or 17 when they were captured shortly after independence because of their links to small far-leftist groups. A regime that locks up teenagers for the crime of thinking, which is what this case is about, is a regime doomed to fail. A serious government, concerned with the development of the country, encourages young people to think. Young people capable of thinking for themselves, that is, of thinking differently, even to the extent of thinking against the dominant paradigms, must be encouraged and rewarded. A democratic society moves forward faster than a society in which the very source of new ideas is gagged by dictatorship. I cannot agree, and […]

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Journalists File Complaint Against the Police

Journalists Rafael Marques de Morais and Alexandre Solombe on Monday filed a formal complaint against the Angolan Rapid Intervention Police (PIR), after they were detained, physically mistreated and received death threats on September 20. In the complaint, addressed to Attorney General João Maria Moreira de Sousa, the journalists also denounced the damage done to their equipment, including cameras and mobile phones, as an attack on the freedom of the press. Marques and Solombe, together with Voice of America correspondent Coque Mukuta, were seized by the police while interviewing a group of youth activists who had just been released from custody on court orders. The eight youths had been arrested the previous day during an attempted demonstration in Luanda. The journalists began interviewing the youths in the street, about 300 meters from the courthouse where a judge had ordered their release. While they were speaking, 45 PIR members surrounded them, and […]

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Dos Santos Picture Caused Arrest

In an expedited trial on Tuesday, Judge Josefina Pedro acquitted Manuel de Vitória Pereira, a senior official of the Bloco Democrático party, in the Luanda Police Court. Pereira had been arrested in his home neighbourhood on 19 September while distributing a party newsletter that had been published in July. An anti-government demonstration was taking place the same day on nearby Largo de Independência (Independence Square), but Pereira was detained alone, while walking in the opposite direction from where the demonstrators were supposed to gather three hours after his arrest. When the National Police spokesman, Commissioner Aristófanes dos Santos, refered to Pereira’s arrest, he referred to him only as “a member of the opposition” as if to prove that he was part of the demonstration. Meanwhile, the policeman who had arrested Pereira stated in court that he had made the arrest only because he had found a young man carrying one […]

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Young “Revolutionaries” Freed on Bail

On Monday, Judge Josefina Pedro of the Luanda Police Court ordered the release of eight youths who had been detained during a demonstration in the city on September 19. The detainees, all known to be members of the self-nominated Revolutionary Movement, were suspected of trying to organise an anti-government demonstration. They are Adolfo António, Adolfo Campos, Amândio Canhanga, António Ferreira, Joel Francisco, Pedro Teka, Quintuango Mabiala and Roberto Gamba. The eight first appeared in court for summary trial on September 20 and were released because there was not sufficient evidence against them. However, 20 minutes after their release, the Rapid Reaction Police rearrested seven members of the group while they were talking to journalist Rafael Marques de Morais about their earlier experiences of arrest and torture under police custody. Marques and two other journalists were arrested at the time same. Police beat all of the detainees, before releasing the three […]

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