Search Results for “ tortura”

Angolan Injustice: The Case of the ‘Kidnapped’ Pastor

6 de December de 2018 D. Quaresma dos Santos

The reported kidnap of an elderly pastor belonging to the Church of Seventh Day Adventists in Angola made for sensational headlines. Pastor Daniel Cem alleged church leaders had ordered his abduction in November 2015 and claimed his family had to pay a ransom of 30 million Kwanzas (US $220,000 at the time) to secure his release. Pastor Cem named the Adventist Church’s regional Executive Secretary as having organized the kidnap. He then accused the President and Chief Financial Officer of defamation for passing around the church hierarchy an anonymous letter purporting to confess that the kidnap was staged by Cem’s own family to extort money from the church. After a controversial trial in December 2017, six members of the Adventist church, including the three northern region leaders, were found guilty and sentenced to between one and five years in prison. They have been bailed, pending appeal, but are confined to […]

Human rights

President José Eduardo dos Santos’ Regime is Afraid of Books

8 de July de 2015 Rafael Marques de Morais

A Maka Angola reader has raised a pertinent question concerning the detention on 21 June of 13 activists who were busy discussing methods of peaceful protest against what they consider to be a dictatorship. Two more activists were detained in the following days, and all fifteen were accused of plotting a coup d’etat. Most of these activists are known for their ill-fated attempts to organize anti-government demonstrations, which have been brutally suppressed. But how is it possible, the reader asks, that people who cannot manage even the most basic protest without being violently clamped down and detained, could have the means to organize a coup d’etat? Tired, perhaps, of being the punching bag for the authorities and of being accused by a part of civil society of being disorganized, the young people decided to form a study group. They armed themselves with books on peaceful forms of protest in order […]

A Day in Court

26 de March de 2015 Maka Angola

The trial of Rafael Marques de Morais began on 24 March in Luanda, amid heavy security measures. In the opening session the defence learnt for the first time of new charges against the accused, for which no formal notification had been received. The trial was adjourned until 23 April to allow Marques de Morais and his lawyers to be formally notified of the charges and to examine their substance. The case initially involved eight charges of criminal libel, stemming from the charge that Marques de Morais filed in 2011 against nine generals who are the owners of the private security company Teleservice and the diamond mining company Lumanhe, which is part of the mining consortium Sociedade Mineira do Cuango (SMC). Marques de Morais brought the charge against the generals on the basis of testimonies about torture and killings that were presented in his book Diamantes de Sangue: Tortura e Corrupção […]

Human rights

Trial of Rafael Marques de Morais to Begin Tomorrow

23 de March de 2015 Maka Angola

Rafael Marques de Morais is to go on trial for criminal libel on Tuesday 24 March, facing up to nine years in prison and damages of $1.2 million. The charge relates to his exposure of human rights abuses in the diamond-producing province of Lunda Norte in north-eastern Angola. The hearing was postponed in December owing to the unavailability of witnesses. The Attorney General’s office has ordered Marques de Morais to appear in court at 8 am on Tuesday. Last week Marques de Morais was honoured with the Journalism Award from the London-based organisation Index on Censorship. The case has been brought by seven generals, all of them shareholders in companies accused of human rights abuses by the journalist in his book Diamantes de Sangue: Tortura e Corrupção em Angola (Blood Diamonds: Torture and Corruption in Angola), published in Portugal in September 2011. However, the charge sheet in the current case […]

Human rights

Trial of Rafael Marques de Morais to begin on December 15

8 de December de 2014 Maka Angola

Rafael Marques de Morais is to go on trial before Judge Adriano Cerveira Baptista in the Luanda Provincial Court on December 15. Marques de Morais is charged with criminal libel for having exposed human rights abuses in the diamond-producing province of Lunda Norte in north-eastern Angola. The case has been brought by seven generals, led by the Minister of State and head of presidential security General Manuel Hélder Vieira Dias Júnior “Kopelipa”, as well as the generals’ fellow board members in two diamond companies, Sociedade Mineira do Cuango (SMC) and ITM-Mining. The other six generals are Carlos Alberto Hendrick Vaal da Silva (inspector general at the Angolan Armed Forces headquarters), Armando da Cruz Neto (MPLA member of parliament), Adriano Makevela Mackenzie, João Baptista de Matos, Luís Pereira Faceira and António Emílio Faceira. The case concerns the book Diamantes de Sangue: Tortura e Corrupção em Angola (Blood Diamonds: Torture and Corruption […]

Human rights

Trial of Rafael Marques de Morais to begin on December 15

8 de December de 2014 Maka Angola

Articles

Generals demand $1.2 million damages and jail for Rafael Marques

27 de August de 2014 Maka Angola

The head of the Intelligence Bureau at the Presidency, General Manuel Hélder Vieira Dias Kopelipa, six other Angolan generals and the mining company Sociedade Mineira do Cuango (SMC) are jointly demanding damages of US$1.2 million from Rafael Marques de Morais, the journalist whom they have accused of defamation. Marques de Morais went to the Luanda Provincial Court on Tuesday morning to sign the formal acknowledgement of the charges against him. The trial date will be set in the coming weeks. The generals complaint of criminal libel is solely based on the public prosecutors decision to set aside a complaint that Marques de Morais brought against the same group of generals in 2011 on the grounds of alleged crimes against humanity committed in the diamond-producing Lunda Norte province. In addition to Kopelipa, the generals who brought the complaint are Carlos Alberto Hendrick Vaal da Silva, Adriano Makevela Mackenzie, João Baptista de […]

Police Detain 23 at Anti-Government Protest in Luanda

20 de September de 2013 Rafael Marques de Morais

Angolan police detained 23 protestors, including an opposition official, near Luanda’s Largo de Independência on Thursday afternoon in connection with an attempted anti-government demonstration by the informal group of youths known as the Angolan Revolutionary Movement (ARM). A 2,000-strong police contingent, including armed police with machine guns and dogs and hundreds of state security agents, prevented the demonstration from occurring. At 12.30 p.m. police detained Manuel de Victória Pereira, who is both the national secretary of the Bloco Democrático party and the vice-president of the National Teachers’ Union, in the vicinity of Largo de Independência. Pereira was distributing party leaflets when he was detained. In a press statement, Bloco Democrático condemned the detention as a “contemptible” act that “confirms the dictatorial character of the current executive.” Police also seized Coque Mukuta, a Voice of America correspondent, for 30 minutes after he tried to check the name of a demonstrator who […]

HRW: Leis de Difamação Silenciam Jornalistas

12 de August de 2013 Maka Angola

A organização internacional de direitos humanos Human Rights Watch (HRW) urge a Procuradoria-Geral da República de Angola a arquivar imediatamente todas as acusações recentes de difamação contra o jornalista investigativo Rafael Marques de Morais, alegando que estas põem em causa o direito à liberdade de expressão. Em comunicado emitido hoje, 12 de Agosto, a HRW indica ainda que o governo angolano deve rever as leis de difamação do país, que são o fundamento da acusação contra o jornalista. Segundo Leslie Lefkow, diretora-adjunta de África da HRW, “Angola tem achado as suas leis de difamação muito útil para reprimir relatos sobre corrupção e violações de direitos humanos. Angola devia estar a investigar estes relatos de graves violações de direitos humanos ao invés de tentar silenciar os portadores de más notícias”. As várias acções judiciais contra o jornalista estão relacionadas com o conteúdo do seu livro Diamantes de Sangue: Corrupção e Tortura […]

Human rights

Rafael Marques Placed Under Investigation in Angola

3 de April de 2013 Maka Angola

Angolan journalist Rafael Marques de Morais was interrogated and charged of defamation by on Wednesday by the Department for Combating Organised Crime of the National Criminal Investigation Directorate (DNIC). It was only during questioning that Mr. Marques de Morais was formally notified that he was under investigation, and was offered the services of a public defender, which he refused. The journalist had not made arrangements to be accompanied by a lawyer as he did not know the content of the DNIC notification, which was only conveyed to him over the phone. In January, three shareholders and managers of the company ITM-Mining accused Mr. Marques de Morais of having defamed them in his book “Blood Diamonds: Torture and Corruption in Angola” (“Diamantes de Sangue: Tortura e Corrupção em Angola”), published in September 2011 in Portugal. The three men – Mozambican Hermínio Teixeira, Briton Andrew Paul Machin, and Angolan Jorge Gonçalves – […]

Human rights