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Photo: Lusa
Over 20 Angolan activists are being summarily tried on Monday at the Luanda district court, after being detained on Saturday in Luanda for attempting a “demonstration not authorised” by the authorities, the Angolan police said.
According to the spokesman for the Luanda provincial command of the national police, Nestor Goubel, the detentions of the 23 activists, including three women, were for “disrespecting the requirements” of the law on the right of assembly and demonstration.
Speaking to Lusa today, Goubel recalled that demonstrating is a right provided for in the Angolan constitution, but he noted that Law 16/91, on the right to meet and demonstrate, “recommends a set of conditions for those who want to meet or demonstrate”.
“And what happens is that people do not observe those conditions, they take to the streets, they do not make it known, sometimes they do not wait for an official communication from certain bodies, and then they carry out acts of vandalism,” he said, noting that the activists were being tried today.
Angolan opposition party Bloco Democrático, BD, “deplores and strongly rejects” the detentions of the activists and said they were held in “deplorable conditions in the cells of the Lobster Lighthouse police station in breach of the law and in flagrant violation of their rights as citizens.
The BD, in a statement, says dozens of activists were detained, including a member of its political committee and three women, notably one pregnant and another with a six-month-old baby.
“These civic activists were detained because they intended to start a demonstration against Indra (the company selected to manage the electoral process) and for the release of political prisoners, on April 9, despite the fact that it had been called under the terms of the constitution and the freedom of demonstration law, and the relevant authorities had been notified in good time,” the statement said.
Asked about the reasons for the detentions of the three women, the police spokesman in Luanda did not go into detail, referring the response to the Luanda district court.
23 Angolan activists including the 3 women in the pictures, are appearing on court today to be officially charged after they were arrested on Saturday. State prosecutors accuse them of rioting & disobeying an order to disperse. One of the women was jailed with a 7 months old baby pic.twitter.com/IixK3l0zu9
— Zenaida Machado (@zenaidamz) April 11, 2022
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