Category: Politics

In Angola thinking is a crime. This is what can be concluded from the 39 articles in the charges against the most famous political prisoners of our times, in Angola. The essence of the charges are based on a simple technicality. Since there were no facts or evidence to produce a “serious charge,” even if it had to do with intention to commit a crime, the publica prosecution came up with “preparatory acts.” The fact is that preparatory acts are usually not punishable. These acts are only punishable in very special cases such as an attempt on the life of the President of the Republic. In this way, the young people who were meeting to exchange ideas have been charged with making an attempt on the President’s life and with rebellion because there is no crime to speak of.  Therefore, the judicial authorities had to turn to exceptional accusations resting […]

Luaty’s life is at risk. He has been on hunger strike for 21 days. This is his way of protesting against being detained and abused for more than 100 days, due to a coercive measure put in place by President dos Santos’s attorney general. I fully understand Luaty’s lonely struggle in this regime’s decision makers’ hour of madness. I understand all the better because I went through a similar experience in 1999 when I was arrested for calling this same president “corrupt” and a “dictator”. I spent 14 days on hunger strike. Why do I mention this? Because sometimes you have to remember past cases to assess the conduct of those who fight for freedom, and the behaviour of those who oppress us: in this case, the President’s men. When I was led to a cell of the Central Forensic Laboratory, adjoining the Santana Cemetery, the then director of the […]

Yesterday, September 14, a judge of the provincial court of Cabinda sentenced José Marcos Mavungo, a 57 year-old human rights activist, to six years of imprisonment on the charge of rebellion. His legal counsels will appeal to the Supreme Court. Mavungo has already spent six months in jail, and will serve 5.5 more years in jail. The peaceful protest he attempted to organize on March 14 never took place, as it had been prohibited by the authorities. Nevertheless, police and security forces arrested him as he stepped out of a Catholic religious service early in the morning on the same day of the planned protest. The authorities charged him with the crime of rebellion. Mavungo’s sentencing was a mockery of justice. It did not meet basic due process guarantees and formal trial standards required by Angolan law.  The judge Jeremias Sofrera ignored the blatant lack of evidence exposed during the […]

For the second time in my legal and political brushes with the Angolan government, I learnt  of a banning order preventing me from entering Luanda, my city. I arrived in Luanda at 12.15 yesterday, having flown from South Africa.  While checking my passport, an immigration officer asked me: “What kind of problems do you have with the Angolan government?” He then told me of the order banning my entrance and held on to my passport. Another officer ordered me to join a group of foreigners in a waiting room who were possibly about to be repatriated for immigration irregularities. Apparently I was assumed a foreigner; one of the officers began to address me in English. After a while, another officer, playing the well-mannered cop, came to talk to me and informed me that his colleague had been overzealous. He added that there was an order banning me from leaving the […]

As evidence of the confusion abounding within political and judicial authorities with regard to the case of the 15 political prisoners, senior officials from the Criminal Investigation Service (SIC) and the Attorney General’s office in Luanda travelled to Lisbon. There, on 6 and 7 August, they interrogated Alberto Neto, owner of the property where the youths were arrested, and made bizarre accusations about the activists’ alleged plans. Alberto Neto, a politician and academic, was interrogated by the deputy attorney general of the Republic attached to SIC, Luciano Chaca, and the SIC special agent Pedro João, who coordinated the raid on Neto’s home that resulted in the arrest of 13 of the youths. In an exclusive interview with Maka Angola, Alberto Neto described what happened. “I was in Sweden as a visiting professor in the University of Malmo. I was told that over 50 police officers had surrounded and entered my […]