Four of the jailed Angolan activists in the case that has dragged on since June. Photograph: Ekuva Estrela
Over the past month, the Angolan government has continued its crackdown on freedom of expression and the right to assemble in the country.
Most recently, on 14 September, human rights activist José Marcos Mavungo received a six year jail sentence for attempting to hold a peaceful protest on 14 March. Even though the demonstration was banned, a judge of the provincial court of Cabinda charging him with rebellion.
Mavungo is a former member of “Mpalabanda”, a group that was banned after it highlighted rights abuses by security forces in the province.
Concerns have been raised that the activist’s sentencing represents a serious abuse of the Angolan justice system. “It did not meet basic due process guarantees and formal trial standards required by Angolan law,” wrote 2015 Index journalism award winner Rafael Marques de Morais, Angolan activist and founder of anti-corruption website, Maka Angola. “The judge, Jeremias Sofrera, ignored the blatant lack of evidence exposed during the trial and all allegations and complaints presented by the defense lawyers.”
Mavungo’s legal counsel said they will appeal his sentencing.
Marques has repeatedly been targeted by Angolan authorities for his investigative journalism. He was briefly detained and had his passport confiscated by immigration officers on 10 September while returning from a trip to South Africa. Marques wrote that he was given contradicting explanations as to why he was being held. It was unclear whether a new order had been issued or an old one banning him from leaving Angola was still in force. Ultimately his passport was returned and he was released.
The incident did not deter the Marques, who only a few days later helped to organise a meeting in solidarity with political prisoners, which was attended by more than a thousand people. The event was broadcast live by the radio station and streamed through various social networks for nearly four hours.
The mother of 19-year old political prisoner Nito Alves, Adalia Chivonde, told the gathering that her son was being subjected to psychological torture and isolation. “We are asking the President and General Ze Maria [Chief of the Military Intelligence and Security] to free our sons,” she said.
One of the most well-known recent cases is that of 15 men imprisoned since June on charges of civil disobedience and planning to overthrow the government. The men, who were part of a study group, had been organising peaceful demonstrations against President José Eduardo dos Santos since March 2011. On 28 August, the families of the prisoners staged a march in support their loved ones despite a banning order issued by the local governor.
The families have repeatedly attempted to hold public demonstrations to bring attention to their relatives’ situation, but have been thwarted by bureaucratic obstacles. The family members have responded by submitting petitions and modifying their plans to meet the official objections.
The protest was supposed to take place at 3pm on Friday 28 August at Praca da Independencia (Independence Square) in Luanda. However, as the protest coincided with the 73rd birthday celebrations of President dos Santos, the streets were not only filled with music, dancing and craft fairs, but also secret police agents and the presidential guard, with RPG-7s and AK47s in tow.
“We are not going to sit and wait for our sons. We really are going to march. It is our right,” stated Adália Chivonde, the mother of prisoner Manuel Nito Alves, in the days running up to the demonstration.
“We will not be able to hold the demonstration because, as you can see, [they] have already invaded all the space,” said Elsa Caolo, sister of Osvaldo Caolo, one of the jailed men. “We can not even walk in peace — we are to be chased down the street […] we can’t speak out.”
How is it possible that people who cannot manage even the most basic protest, without being violently clamped down and detained, could have the means to organise a coup d’état? This is a pertinent question sent in by a reader of my website, Maka Angola, following the detention of 15 activists in Angola in late June.
The young people had formed a study group. They armed themselves with books on peaceful forms of protest in order better to defend their ideas. This posed an even greater threat to those in power who, according to various analysts, are more afraid of freedom of thought than of guns.
On Wednesday 24 June, the attorney general, Army General João Maria de Sousa, confirmed the detention of 15 youths for allegedly preparing acts of collective disobedience to overthrow the government, and unseat President Dos Santos. “These acts constitute crimes against the security of the state, as a crime of rebellion. As such, the competent bodies of the state must take action to avert the worst,” General João Maria de Sousa told the press.
The group were reading the famous book by US academic Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation. The book’s blurb describes it as “a blueprint for nonviolent resistance to repressive regimes.” The youth were reportedly brainstorming peaceful strategies to protest against the rule of Dos Santos.
Maka Angola has decided to find out about these 15 people jailed as “coup plotters”, and has compiled profiles of each one on the site. An extract follows here.
Inocêncio António de Brito “Drux” Age: 28 years Occupation: Student and head of Scout group at a Catholic church
“My son only knows how to manipulate a pen, he does not know how to handle a gun. Will he be able to make a coup with a pen?” wonders Marta Mulay, the mother of Inocêncio de Brito.
She says the arrest of her son “is an injustice. He is innocent of everything that he is accused of. Inocêncio disagrees with the president’s governance. He just simply wants to help to open the minds of the people because the country is in bad shape. As a family, we demand his immediate release”.
In turn, his sister, Marcelina de Brito, told us how he was taken back to his home after being arrested at the meeting. She says the police shoved a black bag over his head so that he could not see where he was being taken. She confirmed that the police seized his computer, telephone and all his books and university notebooks.
Mbanza Hamza
Age: 30
Occupation: Primary school teacher
Since 2011, Mbanza Hamza has been one of the main victims of the brutality inflicted by the police and security forces on the youth movement that has protested against the regime of President dos Santos. In 2012, MPLA-controlled militias broke his skull and collarbone during a raid on a house where youths were meeting to plan a demonstration.
Mbanza lives with his two children in his mother’s house. His mother, Leonor Odete João, has no fear about expressing her disgust at her son’s detention. “My son’s strength is his conscience. The books he reads are what’s scaring the president …The danger here is studying, it’s what my son is learning. He has freedom of conscience and freedom of choice.”
She added: “Since my son was arrested I haven’t been eating, just weeping.”
She condemns the way in which police from the Criminal Investigation Service (SIC) arrived at her house without a warrant for the searches and arrests they carried out. “They took my computer, they took my phone and my younger son’s. They even took my women’s magazines and newspapers that I have kept. They took all the papers they could find.”
José Gomes Hata “Cheik Hata” Age: 29 years Occupation: Hip-hop artist
Cheik Hata is one of the promoters, with Hitler Samusuku, of the hip-hop group Third Division. His lyrics are considered to be revolutionary. The verses are about rebellion – rebellion of the youngsters who feel robbed, oppressed and betrayed – and they speak about the reality of life in Angola, bluntly and without any fear.
“Wake up, let’s do it/Negative thoughts, devilish acts/results in violations, corruption and murder/in general, men possessed without mercy/More percentage to Zé (…)/”, sings the rapper in the music track “Half man, half animal”, from the record Project Does Not Vote.
Domingos da Cruz Age: 31 years Occupation: Professor at the Independent University of Angola
Because of his intellectual role and as the main speaker during debates of new forms of peaceful activism, the authorities consider Domingos da Cruz as one of the “ringleaders” of the alleged coup-plotting. He is the author of the book Tools to Destruct the Dictator and Prevent New Dictatorship: Political Philosophy to the Liberation of Angola. The work has been used as a manual in the young people’s meetings and may be considered an adaptation of the activist model propagated by the US academic Gene Sharp, in his book From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation. This book has been internationally used as an instruction manual for non-violent strategies against dictatorships.
However, the contents of Domingos da Cruz book is not as bombastic as the title suggests. In general, the 184-page work defends non-violent struggle, including civil disobedience, as the best way for Angolans to achieve their freedom and implement true democracy. The author is against the use of violence and insists on safeguarding human lives. On the possibility of a coup, for example, to overthrow the dictatorship, for example, Da Cruz argues that coups represent a setback in the process of change and tend to give rise to a new dictatorship. He does not promote the idea of change based on external support. He is against it.
To pursue Da Cruz, the judicial bodies are clinging to the title of his works.
According to his sister, four police agents, last Sunday 21 June 2015 ransacked Da Cruz’s house, “including the bathroom and water buckets”. They took everything that was written on paper.
The other detainees include: Hitler Jessia Chiconda “Samusuku”, a student and hip-hop artist; Osvaldo Caholo, a lieutenant in the National Air Force and assistant teacher of African history; Nelson Dibango, a computer technician; Albano Evaristo Bingobingo “Albano Liberdade”, a driver; Arante Kivuvu, a student; Manuel Baptista Chivonde Nito Alves, a student; Luaty “Ikonoklasta” Beirão, a rapper; Sedrick de Carvalho, journalist; Fernando Tomás “Nicola Radical”, technician; Nuno Álvaro Dala, university lecturer; and Benedito Jeremias, a student.
Journalist and human rights activist Rafael Marques de Morais (Photo: Sean Gallagher/Index on Censorship)
Angolan investigative journalist and Index on Censorship award-winner Rafael Marques de Morais was handed down a six-month suspended sentence in Luanda on Thursday 28 May 2015, less than a week after celebrating an apparent dismissal of all charges.
Last Thursday, it had been widely understood that the case against him – in which he was accused of defaming several generals in a 2011 book about human-rights violations in the diamond industry – had been dropped. All parties appeared to have reached an agreement, whereby Marques would not republish his book but could continue his work.
However, the public prosecutor said on Monday 25 May 2015 that Marques’ statement was an admission of guilt and called for him to receive a suspended sentence.
Speaking to Index ahead of the sentencing, Marques said: “The public prosecutor put words in my mouth. He said that I had apologised, and had admitted to have written falsehoods.”
Marques’ witnesses, including a mother of a victim who was hacked to death in the Lundas mining region, were never given the chance to speak in court, after the case was “dismissed” in a move that Marques now believes was “a trick”.
Marques has been convicted for malicious prosecution, not defamation. The malicious prosecution charges (saying that he intentionally submitted false evidence) were added – in another unexpected move – on his first day in court in March.
The six-month suspended sentence has a term of two years, during which if he engages in any behaviour the state deems as criminal, the sentence will be implemented. Marques will be launching an appeal.
Over 50 signatories – including Index on Censorship, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other international NGOs – have written a letter to Angolan President José Eduardo Dos Santos, demanding urgent action on Marques’ case and calling for Angola’s criminal defamation laws to be abolished.
In March, just days before the trial started, Marques attended Index on Censorship’s Freedom of Expression Awards in London, where he received the journalism award for his courageous and vital investigations. In a speech, he said: “I am proud and honoured to stand up against such a mighty power to enable many of the victims to speak out through my reports, which I have been producing for the past 10 years.”
Index on Censorship’s CEO Jodie Ginsberg said: “We are appalled to hear that Rafael has been sentenced after an absurd process. This is a clear violation of rights to free expression, to a free press and to a fair trial. We are extremely concerned not only about Rafael, whose work is so incredibly important, but also that cases like this are being used to deter others from speaking out. We feel a suspended sentence over two years will curb his ongoing work, which has recently included highlighting Angola’s press restrictions and reporting on a massacre of members of a sect by police forces.”
Journalist and human rights activist Rafael Marques de Morais (Photo: Alex Brenner for Index on Censorship)
When you go up against the big guns of any state, you know they will throw everything at you. Even when they tell you that you have won, you shouldn’t believe a word they say.
Investigative journalist Rafael Marques de Morais has learned this hard lesson in the last few days.
For months the journalist, who reported on killings and torture related to Angola’s diamond industry, has been awaiting a court appearance on criminal defamation charges that could have resulted in a nine-year prison sentence and a fine of up to £800,000.
As those months went by, additional charges were added, and the pressure on the journalist and his family ramped up and up. Then at the end of last week, an Angolan court announced it was going to drop all the criminal defamation charges against him.
Marques celebrated the “good news” with his supporters. But days later the Angola court system did a complete swivel and decided that instead it was planning to find him guilty and punish him with a prison sentence.
The tension-filled story has enough twists and turns to make it into a Hollywood thriller one day, but this is real and for now Marques has to live through the incredible pressure it puts on him and his family.
Marques said today: “I am in disbelief for what I heard in court. The public prosecutor put words into my mouth. He said that I had apologised, and had admitted to have written falsehoods.”
He added: “My witnesses were scheduled to be heard on May 22, and I had brought eight victims from the Lundas. The generals were supposed to be heard on May 21, and never showed up. What I stated in court, on May 21, is on the record and of public knowledge. I was asked to make a short statement to enable to generals and their companies, as well as the state to drop the charges against me.”
Marques, an internationally recognised journalist, added: ” All parties agreed that there was no further need for witnesses to be heard or evidence to be entered. By Angolan law, in a case of defamation, slander or criminal libel, once explanations are offered in court, and found to be satisfactory for all the parties, the grounds for accusation cease to exist.”
Without his bravery in exposing uncomfortable truths in his book Blood Diamonds: Corruption and Torture in Angola, many people would not know of the terrifying practises in the diamond mines of Angola, an industry in which many of the most powerful generals of the country own shares. Those generals have been pursuing libel claims against Marques for the stories in his book.
Angola’s unregulated diamond industry and its connections to the nation’s 27-year-long civil war which followed independence have drawn international concern.
Marques is just one man standing alone, who has taken incredible risks to report on the tragedy of 500 cases of torture and 100 murders related to the gem industry and to get the news out to the rest of the world. When you meet Marques, as I did this year when he received an Index on Censorship award, you realise he is driven by an incredible sense of hope. He believes incredibly strongly that his reporting can help go some way to changing the conditions that the people of Lundas are suffering.
When you meet someone who is that brave and committed, then you realise that most of us never take a decision as difficult and filled with personal consequences as Marques has.
But as this very brave man said in March when he was describing his work; “They can lock me up, but they don’t get to silence me.” Let’s hope that they don’t do either.
