17 Jun 16 | Angola, News and features, Statements
Demonstrations are being held in Brussels, Luanda, Pretoria and Paris to mark one year since the arrest of an Angolan book club’s members.
20 June has been named Liberation Day in solidarity with the group of 17 young men who received sentences between two and eight-and-a-half years in March. They were convicted of preparing acts of rebellion and conspiring against the government.
The majority of the group (15) were were arrested last June while holding a meeting to discuss politics and democracy in the country, which has been ruled by President Eduardo dos Santos for 36 years. They had been reading a book about non-violent resistance by Nobel Prize nominee Gene Sharp.
Relatives, human rights groups and the press have reported severe concerns about the prisoners’ deteriorating health.
Rapper Luaty Beirão has attempted to protest his five-year sentence with a hunger strike. Friends managing his Facebook said that he has recently been experiencing intense fevers and the Portuguese press has reported he is being treated for malaria.
Nuno Dala, a university lecturer who is part of the jailed group, also carried out a 36-day hunger strike after packages sent to him from relatives failed to be delivered and he was refused access to books. Last month saw the release of Dala’s own book, The Political Thought of Young Revus: Speech and Action, which he was working on when he was arrested. The launch coincided with his daughter’s first birthday.
Amnesty International, which has declared the 17 as prisoners of conscience and launched a petition to demand their release, said, “They should not have spent a single day in prison and must be released immediately and unconditionally.”
The 17 jailed activists are Henrique Luaty da Silva Beirão, Manuel Chivonde (Nito Alves), Nuno Álvaro Dala, Afonso Matias (Mbanza Hanza), Nelson Dibango Mendes dos Santos, Hitler Jessy Chivonde (Hitler Samussuko), Albano Evaristo Bingobingo, Sedrick de Carvalho, Fernando António Tomás (Nicolas o Radical), Arante Kivuvu Italiano Lopes, Benedito Jeremias, José Gomes Hata (Cheick Hata), Inocêncio Antônio de Brito, Osvaldo Sérgio Correia Caholo, Domingos da Cruz, Laurinda Gouveia and Rosa Conde.
Details of the worldwide protests on and around Liberation Day can be found here
16 Dec 15 | Awards, Events, mobile, Press Releases
A graffiti artist who paints murals in war-torn Yemen, a jailed Bahraini academic and the Ethiopia’s Zone 9 bloggers are among those honoured in this year’s #Index100 list of global free expression heroes.
Selected from public nominations from around the world, the #Index100 highlights champions against censorship and those who fight for free expression against the odds in the fields of arts, journalism, activism and technology and whose work had a marked impact in 2015.
Those on the long list include Chinese human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang, Angolan journalist Sedrick de Carvalho, website Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently and refugee arts venue Good Chance Calais. The #Index100 includes nominees from 53 countries ranging from Azerbaijan to China to El Salvador and Zambia, and who were selected from around 500 public nominations.
“The individuals and organisations listed in the #Index100 demonstrate courage, creativity and determination in tackling threats to censorship in every corner of globe. They are a testament to the universal value of free expression. Without their efforts in the face of huge obstacles, often under violent harassment, the world would be a darker place,” Index on Censorship CEO Jodie Ginsberg said.
Those in the #Index100 form the long list for the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards to be presented in April. Now in their 16th year, the awards recognise artists, journalists and campaigners who have had a marked impact in tackling censorship, or in defending free expression, in the past year. Previous winners include Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, Argentina-born conductor Daniel Barenboim and Syrian cartoonist Ali Ferzat.
A shortlist will be announced in January 2016 and winners then selected by an international panel of judges. This year’s judges include Nobel Prize winning author Wole Soyinka, classical pianist James Rhodes and award-winning journalist María Teresa Ronderos. Other judges include Bahraini human rights activist Nabeel Rajab, tech “queen of startups” Bindi Karia and human rights lawyer Kirsty Brimelow QC.
The winners will be announced on 13 April at a gala ceremony at London’s Unicorn Theatre.
The awards are distinctive in attempting to identify individuals whose work might be little acknowledged outside their own communities. Judges place particular emphasis on the impact that the awards and the Index fellowship can have on winners in enhancing their security, magnifying the impact of their work or increasing their sustainability. Winners become Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards Fellows and are given support for the year after their fellowship on one aspect of their work.
“The award ceremony was aired by all community radios in northern Kenya and reached many people. I am happy because it will give women courage to stand up for their rights,” said 2015’s winner of the Index campaigning award, Amran Abdundi, a women’s rights activist working on the treacherous border between Somalia and Kenya.
Each member of the long list is shown on an interactive map on the Index website where people can find out more about their work. This is the first time Index has published the long list for the awards.
For more information on the #Index100, please contact [email protected] or call 0207 260 2665.
