Category: Human rights

Remember this man?   He’s Angolan activist Manuel Chivonde Baptista Nito Alves – one of the defendants in a trial known abroad as the “Luanda Book Club” case.  He was one of 15 young men arrested for “plotting rebellion against the President” in June 2015 as they discussed Gene Sharp’s Book about peaceful ways to overturn dictatorships Nito Alves and his cohort (two others were subsequently added to the docket) have already endured seven months of ill treatment in preventative detention and a stop-start show trial so incompetent that witnesses were only notified by the state television newspaper reports that they must give evidence. The international outcry finally embarrassed the regime and just before Christmas, they passed a law on preventative detention which allowed the ‘15+2’ (as the expanded group are dubbed in Luanda) to be placed under house arrest for the remainder of the trial. It was seen as compassionate, […]

The Angolan judge presiding over the ‘Luanda Book Club’ trial of 17 Angolan activists accused of preparing a rebellion, has pronounced one of the activists guilty of contempt of court and sentenced him to six months in prison and a fine of 50,000 Kwanzas. Defendant Manuel Chivonde Baptista Nito Alves, 19,  had “interjected disrespectfully”, said Judge Januário Domingos, accusing him of “offending and disrespecting the court.” Nito Alves was allegedly heard to make a comment when his own father, Fernando Baptista, was being asked whether he had been heard in the preparatory phase of the trial,  to which he said “no”. Counsel for the public prosecutor’s office referred Fernando Baptista to records of the proceedings.  That was when Nito Alves “interjected disrespectfully” said the judge,  to “belittle and slander the court.” The defence lawyer asked for moderation and a corrective measure, arguing in mitigation that the accused had been under intense pressure, including six months […]

Late last year, after a torrid few weeks under the gaze of the world’s media, the trial of dissidents charged with rebellion against Angola’s MPLA government was abruptly adjourned in time for Christmas.  This was seen as less a gesture of seasonal goodwill, more an attempt to shake off some increasingly uncomfortable scrutiny by the outside world. The initial 15 defendants, known as the “Luanda Book Club”, are a group of youthful dissidents and activists who were arrested for having gathered to read and discuss Gene Sharp’s ‘From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation”.  The book is described as a blueprint for nonviolent resistance to repressive regimes.  For the heinous act of reading about resistance, they were charged with conspiracy to overthrow the state.  Two other human rights activists were later added to the charge sheet, though not held in detention. After months in preventative custody, Rapper Luaty Beirão and his […]

“They took me to the Police Station in the Nova Vida (New Life) Project where some policemen punched and kicked me,” says 28 year-old Benjamin Filipe, as he recalls the events of August 20th, 2012. The young man was working as a mechanic in a private workshop and lived in Fubu District at the back end of the Nova Vida Project, south of the Angolan capital, Luanda.  That day “the police went to my home, saying I possessed a weapon and had committed a crime”, he explains. “They kicked me in the head so much that my ears bled”, he says.  “And then after what they called this “softening up”, one of the policemen took some pliers and pulled out three fingernails: from the index finger, middle finger and little finger of my right hand”. Such ill-treatment merits the definition of torture.  And it was only after this that the […]

Malungo Sapalalo says with immense pride, his voice cracking, that he is from Huila, a province in Southern Angola that has long been a magnet for tourists and campers, an area many describe as heavenly within national standards. The search for work drew him to the country’s capital, Luanda, where he has encountered hell: arbitrary detention and torture at the hands of police officers.  It could have been worse.  He witnessed officers beating a fellow detainee to death. This is Malungo Sapalalo’s story. On November 5 last year, around midday, Sapalalo was busy at his second job as a loader near the ” Onze de Novembro” football stadium (named for Angolan Independence Day, November 11).  He was loading construction blocks for delivery to building sites. While resting between loads, he and four other workers got into a conversation about vehicles, comparing the relative speeds of a Toyota Hilux versus a […]