Category: Justice

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 […]

Reports from Luanda today (April 13) say that the Angolan National Director of Prison Services, Commissar António Fortunato, has responded to international outrage over the inhumane conditions in the prisons to which the 17 prisoners of conscience, sentenced in what has come to be known as the Luanda Book Club trial.  Commissar Fortunato told Angolan National Radio (RNA) that the authorities would be moving all the imprisoned dissidents to one jail, Viana, one of the municipalities on the eastern outskirts of Luanda. Three of the jailed prisoners of conscience are already being held in Viana – the two female activists Rosa Conde and Laurinda Gouveia are in the women’s wing, while Laurinda’s partner, Nito Alves is in the male wing. Name: Manuel Baptista Chivonde Nito Alves Age: 19 years old Birthplace: Huambo Education: Law student, Instituto Superior Politécnico São Francisco de Assis Occupation: Student Charged with conspiracy to plot a […]

Name: Sedrick de Carvalho Age: 26 years old Place of Birth: Luanda Education: Law, Jean Piaget University Occupation: Journalist for Folha 8, O Golo Charges: Conspiracy to rebellion and criminal association Sedrick de Carvalho began his career in 2011 at the weekly publication Folha 8 as a page layout designer, going on to become a journalist. In 2013 he joined Novo Jornal, where he regularly wrote features on social and economic issues. At the end of his contract last January, he returned to Folha 8, where he still covers social and economic affairs. He also launched a sports blog O Golo and was its main contributor. Sedrick taught a course on page design at the Evangelical Church of Angola before joining the Luanda Book Club on Saturday, June 20, 2015. His colleagues state that Sedrick’s laptop was broken and that he had borrowed one from journalist and writer Domingos da […]

Nuno Álvaro Dala, one of the imprisoned Angolan dissidents, has been on hunger strike for the past 31 days.   So far that’s one day for each of his 31 years of age and almost as many as the number of years that José Eduardo dos Santos has ruled over Angola (37, come September).  In another five days, Nuno Dala will overtake his fellow prisoner Luaty Beirão’s record hunger strike of last year. Nuno Dala’s courage is admirable.  He is not refusing food because he wishes to be set free.  In some respects he is already free.  He still has free will – and however brutal or stupid the regime’s behaviour towards him, by his self-denial he shows he is undefeated. Nuno Dala stopped eating because those who serve José Eduardo dos Santos’s mindlessly brutal regime have denied him the means to provide for his ten-month-old baby daughter, his wife Raquel […]

Angolan human rights defenders, Rafael Marques de Morais, has given an interview to the Portuguese news agency Lusa about his latest meetings with Obama Administration officials to brief them on the situation in Angola. One of the main concerns underlined in his conversations with US officials was the state of health of two jailed political dissidents, Nito Alves and Nuno Dala, both of whom are gravely ill. Nuno Dala has been on hunger strike for 26 days. “The United States has expressed grave concern over the treatment of these two men who are being held in inhumane conditions in prison and have not received adequate medical attention,” said the rights defender. Briefing Angolan human rights defender Rafael Marques de Morais was in Washington DC this week to brief Obama Administration officials on the fate of the 17 political dissidents recently given long jail terms after a show trial in the […]