Angola

Journalist Rafael Marques de Morais faces defamation charges over a book which describes how Angolan military officials and private security companies committed human rights abuses against Angolan villagers in the course of diamond mining operations.

As the 15 member states of SADC prepare to meet for the 34th Summit of Heads of State and Government in Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe on August 17 and 18, 2014, the three human rights organizations drew attention to serious human rights concerns in Angola, Malawi, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

The African Commission should condemn the Angolan government’s failure to address restrictions on the media and peaceful assembly. It should also establish and send a fact-finding mission to Sudan to investigate the killings and injury of dozens of protesters last September.

On 23 November 2013, presidential guards in Luanda arrested opposition coalition activists who were putting posters on walls, and shot and killed 28-year-old Manuel de Carvalho, after the group was taken into custody.

A confidential Interior Ministry report leaked to the Angolan media described the role of police and the domestic intelligence service, SINSE, in the abduction, torture, and killing of António Alves Kamulingue and Isaías Cassule.

On 19 September, police arrested 22 protesters near Independence Square in Luanda. The next day, three journalists trying to interview newly freed protesters were themselves arrested, threatened, and beaten by the police.

Rafael Marques de Morais currently faces 11 lawsuits. The investigative journalist has exposed high-level corruption cases and pursued sensitive investigations into human rights violations in Angola’s diamond areas.

Angolan authorities forcibly broke up a peaceful protest on 27 May 2013, denouncing the enforced disappearance of two activists a year ago.Human Rights Watch also expressed concern at the lack of a credible investigation into the disappearances.

Powerful Angolan shareholders own stakes in several leading Portuguese publications. Aware of their economic fragility, authorities in Lisbon are wary of upsetting their powerful economic partner, local journalists say.

The Angolan government should end its crackdown on peaceful protests and the media with the start of the election campaign on 1 August, says Human Rights Watch.

Protest organiser António Alves Kamulingue called a Voice of America journalist and said that he had fled to a hotel in the city center because he was being followed and feared for his life. Kamulingue’s family members have not heard from him since that day.

To view this email as a web page, go to the link below, or copy and paste it into your browser’s address window. http://view.s4.exacttarget.com/?j=fed110717760047e&m=fe951570736405747c&ls=fe5317797c6c02787716&l=ff6315727c&s=fe6015747d6701797015&jb=ffcf14&ju= NEWS ALERT In Angola, independent journalist’s home robbed in Cabinda New York, June 13, 2012-Authorities in Angola’s enclave of Cabinda must immediately launch an investigation into the robbery at the home […]

“We are a simulated democracy. Angola is really a dictatorship,” said Elias Isaac, country director for the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (Osisa).

Since January, authorities have banned and cracked down on five anti-government rallies and arrested at least 46 protesters, 11 of whom courts sentenced to prison terms of up to 90 days. The increasing violence and threats raise concerns about 2012 elections.

The raid at the independent weekly “Folha 8” was conducted in connection with a politicised investigation into the publication of a satirical photo montage and effectively crippled the operations of one of the country’s two remaining independent publications.

The demonstrators were protesting the 32-year rule of President José Eduardo dos Santos, whom they blame for rampant corruption, widespread poverty and political repression.