Search Results for: Direitos Humanos

There is an enormous controversy among Angolan legal experts about the ways in which President José Eduardo dos Santos could intervene in the case of the 17 youths charged with plotting to overthrow the government and assassinate him. Those ruling out a presidential intervention cite the principle of the separation of powers: the president is head of the executive and is not, therefore, able to instruct the judiciary. This argument is not valid. The principle of the separation of powers has not been enshrined in the Angolan constitution; what exists is a separation of functions or duties. (Art. 105. No 3).  These have to operate inter-dependently — that is, through the constitutional mechanisms  of checks and balances.  This means that the president has to respect the constitution, but he can also, within the stated limits, intervene in the different power centers. He also has the duty of always defending the main […]

The world has its eyes on Luaty Beirão. The world is beginning to understand that the Angolan regime behaves exactly like a dictatorship: it imprisons and tortures its opponents. Not satisfied with the legal farce of the cases of Luaty Beirão and other young people as well as that of José Mavungo and Rafael Marques, the regime has once again broken the law by creating yet another political prisoner. Domingos Magno, a journalist for the site Central 7311, was detained on 16 October on charges of having committed the crime of “false pretense.” It seems Domingos Magno’s crime was to have obtained a press pass to attend the delivery of the State of the Nation speech by Vice President Manuel Vicente, at the National Assembly. According to the authorities, Domingos is not a journalist and should not have been able to get such a pass. The oppressive security services in […]

Albano Bingobingo is very ill. This is his tenth day on hunger strike. Maka Angola learnt through sources within the prison system that Bingobingo has also been severely tortured by guards at the São Paulo Penitenciary in Luanda. “Bingobingo’s eyes have sunken. He is very sick; he has a swollen leg and remained locked up in a human pigsty without any medical assistance,” said the source. Henriqueta Diogo, wife of the political prisoner Benedito Jeremias, also told Maka Angola that Albano Bingobingo has serious difficulties in urinating. On October 14, at around 23:00, four of the political prisoners of the now famous 15+1 Case – Benedito Jeremias, Afonso Matias “Mbanza Hamza”; Hitler Jessy Chiconde, and Albano Bingobingo – were transferred from the São Paulo Penitenciary to the Luanda Central Penitenciary. The norm is for detainees to be transferred during the day; however, in the case of these political prisoners, the government […]

“I saw the wounds on the legs, the hands and on his back. I had to massage him as he was very swollen. He took a heavy beating. Fifteen to twenty police tortured him. He can hardly walk,” revealed Henriqueta Diogo.  She was referring to the terror her husband, the political prisoner Benedito Jeremias, experienced last Friday at the São Paulo prison hospital in Luanda. According to Henriqueta Diogo, her husband and five others who have been detained in the 15+1 case were protesting over what is supposed to be a basic right – being able to talk to each other during breaks. “The police started beating him while he was in his cell with electric truncheons while  the jail’s deputy director, Aldivino Oliveira, took photographs and filmed everything. He was then dragged out of the cell where the punishment continued, “ said Henriqueta Diogo. Yesterday, Henriqueta Diogo found her […]

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 […]

Fernando Baptista, father of the political prisoner Manuel Baptista Chivonde Nito Alves, was summoned on Friday to testify before the Criminal Investigation Service [SIC] in Luanda. He was questioned about his son’s primary school education and about his given name, which recalls the name of a famous anti-establishment leader from the 1970s. “I was interrogated by special agent Pedro João, in the presence of Superintendent Fernando Recheado. They wanted to know why I called my son Nito Alves,  and where he went to school from pre-school to the end of his primary education”, the father told Maka Angola. According to Fernando Baptista, the interrogation lasted one hour and “was based entirely on his name and his primary education”. “Special agent Pedro João also asked me if we are related to Commander Nito Alves and I said we were not”, said the father. The legendary commander Alves Bernardo Baptista “Nito Alves”, […]

The mothers and relatives of the 15 political prisoners are set to defy the authorities today, at 13.00, when they attempt to march in Luanda to demand the release of their sons. Yesterday, the Luanda Provincial Government notified the organizers that the march had been prohibited. It has become a routine for the police and security forces to disperse any attempt at anti-government protests with considerable pre-emptive violence, arrests and sometimes kidnapping. The provincial government has clearly changed its position on the march, as it had initially allowed it by citing the constitutional right of peaceful demonstrations. It is now impeding the realisation of the march, allegedly for legal reasons. Reacting to the ban, Leonor Odete João, mother of Afonso Matias “Mbanza Hamza” told Maka Angola “the march will go ahead”. “We will not get to the National Assembly, but we will reach the Largo da Mutamba and send a […]