Category: Justice

An unholy alliance of three political parties in the Portuguese parliament resulted on March 31 in their voting down the Left Block’s motion to repudiate the verdicts and sentences handed down against Domingos da Cruz, Luaty Beirão, Nito Alves and a further 14 young Angolans, condemned for peacefully manifesting their disagreement with the looting of their homeland by the dictatorial oligarchy led by José Eduardo dos Santos. The PSD (Social Democratic Party) led by Passos Coelho, the CDS (Social Democratic Centre Peoples Party) led by Paulo Portas and the PCP (Portuguese Communist Party) led by Jerónimo de Sousa, have shown themselves to be accomplices of the public servants bought and paid for by the Dos Santos regime for their work in perpetuating the disgusting banality of evil which has become the daily experience of millions of Angolans. Portas, Passos and the Communists are today partners in this repellent neo-colonial expedition […]

It’s not easy to find sleep when your thoughts are filled with the plight of 17 colleagues. By daring to explore ways of expressing dissent – in what is supposed to be a democracy – they  are persecuted, beaten, deprived of their liberty, subjected to a kangaroo court, convicted on the most spurious evidence by puppet judges, and then sentenced to long prison terms in unsanitary conditions where they will be denied their most basic human rights, including medical attention. Will Judge Januário Domingos sleep easy tonight?  Will Prosecutor Isabel Fançony Nicolau?  Do they know or care that their reputations will now forever be sullied by the infamy of their roles in a tawdry show trial? Isabel was apparently so embarrassed by having to play the part of prosecuting attorney that she adopted a disguise (a face-obscuring wig, glasses and exaggerated cosmetics) during the trial. This dastardly duo has previous […]

As they predicted from the moment of their arrest, the political dissidents who dared to think about a transition from dictatorship to democracy in Angola, have been found guilty at their show trial of a “conspiracy to rebel” against the 36-year government of President José Eduardo dos Santos. All 17 defendants caught or suspected of reading Gene Sharp’s book advocating nonviolent means of resisting dictatorship in June last year, have been found guilty of the crimes of “preparation for rebellion” and “criminal association”, and handed prison sentences ranging from two to eight years.  Charges of preparing a coup against the President were dropped. The development has been widely condemned by human rights organizations around the world.  In New York, the Human Rights Foundation issued a statement strongly condemning the convictions and sentences and called on the Angolan government “to vacate the convictions and release the activists immediately.” Journalist Domingos da […]

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 […]