Tag: defamation

A London Law Firm Won’t Stop Us Exposing Those Who Swindle Angola

My job is to investigate and expose human rights abuses and large-scale corruption in Angola. It’s not just my job – I have dedicated my life to this fight for justice in my native land. Inevitably this makes me a target for harassment by the current regime and the judicial system it controls, such as the Criminal Investigation Service (Serviço de Investigação Criminal – SIC) and the Office of Attorney-General of the Republic (Procuradoria-Geral da República – PGR). These minor irritations are part and parcel of the kind of work done by social justice activists the world over. Abroad, in Western democracies such as Portugal, people are often surprised that the Angolan government, which has been repeatedly branded as a dictatorship, doesn’t use violence to the same extent as other dictatorial regimes to silence critics. Perhaps they are unaware that extrajudicial execution is a commonplace event in Angola. I am […]

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Angola’s Christmas Message to Pesky Journalists: Shut Up or Else!

On the eve of the Christmas celebrations in Angola, one of its most prominent human rights defenders, the investigative journalist and anti-corruption activist Rafael Marques de Morais, received an unexpected greeting: a summons to present himself at the Interior Ministry’s Criminal Investigation Services for interrogation about an alleged “insult” against the country’s Attorney General. The “insult”, an alleged slander, related to the publication of evidence showing that business dealings by General João Maria Moreira de Sousa, Angola’s Attorney General, were contravening both the constitution and the law. The official response was not to take action to verify whether or not the Attorney General’s activities might be in breach of the law, but instead to mount a renewed campaign of persecution against Mr Marques de Morais. When information reached Rafael Marques de Morais that the Attorney General was erecting a condominium on land designated for rural purposes, he quite properly sought […]

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Minor Arrested for “Defaming” the President

Angolan police detained youth activist Manuel Civonda Baptista Nito Alves, 17, on Thursday, September 12, for allegedly defaming President José Eduardo dos Santos. The arrest took place in Luanda’s Viana district. “We went to Unit 45 of the National Police in Capalanca neighborhood, and the police told us my son had been detained when he went to fetch t-shirts for the Revolutionary Movement demonstration scheduled for September 19,” his father Fernando Baptista told Maka Angola. “The police officers told us he was detained for having committed the crime of defaming the President of the Republic,” the father added. “They asked us to go to the Municipal Directorate of Criminal Investigation tomorrow to get his case number.” Other activists in the Viana area told Maka Angola that Nito Alves had been detained in connection with the production of 20 t-shirts bearing the words “José Eduardo out! Nasty dictator.” On the back […]

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