Category: Articles

Luanda Central Jail’s Torture Chamber: The Re-Education Room

“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 […]

Read more

The Fate of Portugal’s BPI Bank Lies with Africa’s Richest Woman

One of Portugal’s largest and most venerable banks, the BPI Bank could be brought to its knees, not through bankruptcy or similar problems, but because its operations in Angola would be hamstrung if they lose their link to the Banco de Fomento de Angola (BFA). In the first six months of 2015, BFA operations made up 70% of BPI profits.  That shows the extent of the BPI’s dependency on this single financial institution in its Angolan operation.  And BPI’s partner in the BFA is none other than Unitel. Step forward Isabel dos Santos, billionaire daughter of Angola’s President Jose Eduardo dos Santos.  In other circumstances, it might be quite deliciously ironic to see a post-colonial African entrepreneur  – and a female to boot – take down a bank connected to the old boys’ club of Portugal’s well-heeled aristocracy (Santos Silva and Ulrich). In reality, it is much more complicated. Isabel dos Santos’s […]

Read more

Activist Lodges a Criminal Complaint against Land-Grabbing Governor

The activist Rafael Marques lodged today a criminal complaint in court against the Governor of Kwanza Sul Province, General Eusébio  de Brito Teixeira, for seizing land and then giving it to a company owned by himself. According to the submission delivered to the Office of the Attorney General, and to which Lusa had access, General Eusébio de Brito Teixeira even wrote a petition to the governor of Kwanza Sul Province – that is, to himself – to request the legal rights to land for the construction of a condominium. The letter is dated May 4, 2014; a month later, on June 6, the local Sumbe municipal administrator, where the lands in questions are based, sent the governor of Kwanza Sul province, with a copy to General Eusébio Brito Teixeira, a statement saying local entities were in favor of the proposal, and that the governor should immediately grant legal rights that he […]

Read more

Angola’s Human Rights Crisis: the Abuse of Preventative Detention

Last October, I wrote an article for the Portuguese weekly newspaper Expresso on the ineffectiveness of the presidential pardon system, in which I argued that inhumane treatment is an integral element of Angola’s overloaded Justice system. At that time, the Angolan President, José Eduardo dos Santos, had decreed pardons to prisoners who had served half of their sentences (provided those sentences did not exceed a maximum of 12 years).  Government news releases hailed the move with the headline:  “Thousands of prisoners are set free thanks to the presidential pardon”. Yet while convicted felons benefited, the presidential pardons had no effect on detainees held for years without trial in what Angola calls “preventative detention”. I quoted several cases:  that of João Domingos da Rocha, a 26 year-old who had spent seven years in preventative detention on suspicion of the theft of second hand clothes; of Justino Longia, also detained for five […]

Read more

The War on Social Media and the Trial of Activists

Following the president’s outline of his war on social media, Judge Januário Domingos is making history by being the first to hear a case of a political joke on Facebook that has displeased the regime. Yesterday, the judge of the Luanda Provincial Court questioned a Catholic priest, Father Jacinto Pio Wakussanga, for being part of an imaginary government, generated in a playful Facebook discussion, as the head of the National Electoral Commission. In court, the priest told the judge that he had heard through social media about this imaginary government and thought it was just a joke. Last May, a lawyer Albano Pedro set up an open online forum on his Facebook page to entice discussants to come up with names for what would be an ideal government of national salvation. The leader of the millennial religious sect “The Light of the Day”, José Julino Kalupeteka, who has been in […]

Read more

New Law Enables Indefinite Detention of Dissenters

Angola’s government, which has faced mounting international criticism over the lengthy detention of dissidents, has rushed through a new law entitled the “Law on Precautionary Measures in Criminal Proceedings”. This sudden development legitimized the release under house arrest, in mid-December, of the 15 activists detained last June during a book club reading, and who are currently standing trial for rebellion but had been held in preventative custody for months. That seemed a positive development, but does the new law really represent an advance in Angolan criminal legislation?  Does it introduce more humane treatment of prisoners in line with the rights set out in the Angolan Constitution? Observers note some positives in that the law is undoubtedly an improvement on its predecessor, the rigid 1929 Portuguese Penal Code.  Efforts in 1992 to update the 1929 penal code took place in a climate of war and resulted in a patchwork quilt that […]

Read more

Don’t Look, Don’t Point! The Savagery of an Encounter with the Police

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 […]

Read more

United Nations Calls for the Release of Marcos Mavungo

The American Bar Association, ACAT France, Front Line Defenders, the Southern African Litigation Centre and the global law firm Morrison & Foerster LLP –– welcomed the opinion by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) condemning as arbitrary and in violation of international law the arrest and conviction of Angolan human rights activist José Marcos Mavungo. The UNWGAD has called on the government of Angola to immediately release Mavungo and grant him compensation. “Freedom of expression and peaceful assembly are fundamental to a democracy and no one should be detained for legitimately exercising these rights,” said ABA President Paulette Brown. “The ABA calls upon the government of Angola to respect the UNWGAD’s decision and immediately release José Marcos Mavungo.” Mavungo was arrested and detained in March 2015 on charges of rebellion for organizing a demonstration on human rights violations and bad governance in the Cabinda region of Angola.  […]

Read more

President Dos Santos Wants Dictatorial Control of the Net

Angola’s President for the past 36 years, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, has used his traditional end of year speech to announce legal measures to control social media and the internet, which he feels have been offending and humiliating him. Announcing his main projects for the New Year, the President ignored the famine currently affecting residents in the southern province of Cunene along with the many other challenges faced by the Angolan people.  Instead, he is prioritizing further ways to silence the growing criticism of his increasingly-dictatorial regime. This is equally the case with Angola’s ‘Marie Antoinette’, Isabel dos Santos, the President’s billionaire daughter.  This Christmas she had a  “Let them Eat Cake” moment, choosing to spend US $2 million on bringing the Anaconda rapper Nicki Minaj to Luanda rather visiting Cunene in her role as president of the Angolan Red Cross to assist local communities severely affected by the drought. Social […]

Read more

Isabel dos Santos, the Princess-President?

I have never been taken in with fables. One such fairytale it that the current vice-president of Angola, Manuel Vicente, would succeed President José Eduardo dos Santos, who has been in power for 36 years. I always believed that the power would be eventually transferred to the son-prince José Filomeno dos Santos, whom the father appointed as head of Angola’s Sovereign Wealth Fund. What did I see recently? The daughter-princess Isabel dos Santos was posing next to Nicki Minaj the US rapper of Anaconda fame. What business does this billionaire egg vendor, as Isabel once claimed to have been, have to do there? This is a kind of exposure that does not benefit her image as a manager or businesswoman. In any case, President Dos Santos recently appointed his billionaire daughter to lead the Luanda Metropolitan Master Plan, to revamp the capital city. The father gave a seat to the […]

Read more
1 … 24 25 26 27 28 … 51