Category: Police

Manufacturing Enemies: Inside Angola’s Security State

Shot by police on the first day of Angola’s taxi drivers’ strike, a street bookseller known as “General Nila” has been held for over six months without formal charges. His case exposes a pattern of repression, suspended legality, and the deliberate manufacture of enemies to sustain power. Detained on 28 July 2025 after being shot by police on the first day of Angola’s taxi drivers’ strike, Serrote José de Oliveira — widely known as “General Nila” — has been held for over six months without formal charges. According to his family and lawyers, he remains in detention despite a guarantees judge’s order for his hospitalization and the rejection of a habeas corpus petition. Earlier that morning, Nila was walking with his younger brothers, Bartolo and Pascoal, to Talatona Municipal Hospital to visit a hospitalized relative. His family says they were not participating in any protest and that there were no […]

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Lunda-Norte Empowers Police to Protect Human Rights

PRESS RELEASE Lucapa The third phase of training for about 350 Defence and Security staff took place in Lucapa municipality on Friday, conducted by the General Command of the Angola National Police and the UFOLO Research Centre. The series of seminars addresses the correct and legal use of coercion (including firearms) and the protection of human rights. There were also sessions about good public service and models of police practice, as well as community policing. The last issue involves the observance of the rules and procedures during public meetings or demonstrations in the light of the Constitution and other current legislation. The head of the National Police’s Department of Policing and Public Order, Superintendent Cláudio Tchivela, stated that “the police forces must act in a more proportionate manner, without causing damage to the population, whenever a confrontation is inevitable”. Trainees also learned essential ideas about the best procedures to prevent […]

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Angola’s Rampant Extra-Judicial Killings

More witnesses have come forward to corroborate reports of a wave of extra-judicial killings by elements of the Criminal Investigation Service (SIC) working with the National Police in the suburbs of the Angolan capital, Luanda. Testimony and evidence from multiple sources points to an astonishing level of violence at the hands of either police or SIC agents, including more than 100 extra-judicial shootings in the past five months. Highly-placed sources in the Angolan government suggest that this is the direct result of pressure from the Interior minister for the SIC to crack down on crime in the Viana suburb. Criminal investigators Recently Maka Angola reported the killing of José Loureiro Padrão, known as ‘Zeca’, a 40-year-old motorcycle mechanic who was beaten to death while in SIC custody. A witness to that killing has now come forward to corroborate the family’s complaint and to give further details. “Zeca was wrapped in […]

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