Category: Human rights

The Supreme Court upheld the habeas corpus petition presented by the defence of the 17 activists of the Luanda Book Club, convicted for rebellion and criminal association, who have been serving their prison sentences since March 28. Their lawyer, Michel Francisco, told Lusa “I can announce that I received a call from the Supreme Court to tell me that they will be freed. It has been confirmed and I will witness their release,” the lawyer told Lusa, alluding to the response to the “habeas corpus” petition that had been pending since April. The petition requested that the activists be released while they await a decision regarding their appeal against their conviction for rebellion and criminal association.

Bastos Mateus Elias has been held in Viana Prison for nearly two months on suspicion of stealing a pen drive. He’s just been transferred to the tents, which serve as a makeshift infirmary and a cell for the sick among others. Conditions in the tents are no better than the two other areas he has already passed through since being detained. Initially he was in the holding pen, where prisoners say sexual assaults, or demands for sexual favours in exchange for food, are commonplace.  He was later transferred to Cell D6, where he shared it with nearly 50 other adult prisoners, some of them on remand, others already convicted and serving their sentences. But Bastos Mateus Elias was born on January 11, 2003 – he is only just thirteen years old. His mother, Samba Mateus told Maka Angola that she was away in Kwanza Sul province when her son was […]

From Angola comes yet another report of out-of-control police officers shooting at demonstrators. Three students were wounded, one of them seriously, when police officers opened fire without warning as the youngsters were taking part in a protest march last week in the central Angolan town of Caluquembe, in the province of Huíla. The students were protesting over demands for extra money in connection with their studies, after a local authority meeting decreed that emoluments would be added to tuition fees.  They were also protesting at the summary dismissal of teachers who did not go along with the move. Two of the injured were named as 17-year-old Paulo Alfredo Cabral, a student of economics and law at the Novo Horizonte college and 21-year-old Cecília Camia Francisco, who is a student at the Teacher Training college. Both received gunshot wounds to their legs. “In all, three young people were shot.  Two were […]

CASE 2056/08 His full name is Domingos Manuel Filipe Catete, and he is now 32 years old.   He made his way from the province of Malanje to the Angolan capital, Luanda, to find work.  He was only 24, on May 16, 2008, when he had a few too many drinks one Friday night and passed out in a stranger’s minivan.    He has been locked up ever since, held under “preventive detention” in Luanda Central Penitentiary, the jail known locally as CCL (Comaraca Central de Luanda). Why?  “I was drunk and there was a car with an open door parked right there in front of me, on Rua da Fanta in the Ingombota neighbourhood. I got in and went to sleep.” The next morning, the owner of the car found him there, still asleep. “He drove me straight to the police station where he accused me of stealing a CD case […]