Serra Bango reacted, in statements to the Lusa agency, to police repression against citizens who intended to participate in a demonstration and a march last Saturday, in Luanda.
According to Serra Bango, the police action in these two cases, "in addition to brutality, violates what is enshrined in the Constitution, which gives citizens total freedom to promote and carry out demonstrations whenever they see fit and with the objectives they want".
"It is not indicated which matters should constitute grounds for a demonstration. The demonstration takes place without the obligation to ask the administrative authority. What is said in the text is that they should only notify, inform, the administrative authority, so that it provides the means that aim to guarantee the physical integrity of the demonstrators and third parties who have nothing to do with the demonstration, as well as to preserve the public and private heritage", he stressed.
The activist recalls that the decision n.º 145/21 of the Supreme Court reaffirms that the right to demonstrate is legal, cannot be prohibited and is not subject to governance, underlining that there is a derogatory understanding of the Government on this matter that "it is purposeful, is not innocent".
In that judgment, added Serra Bango, the Supreme Court condemned the former governor of Luanda, Higino Carneiro.
Serra Bango suggested that prosecutors and demonstrators, who "saw their attempts thwarted and also found themselves offended and affected in their physical integrity", to file a complaint both against the provincial governor of Luanda and against the provincial police commander.
"According to the images we saw, some were bitten by dogs or blunt objects were used, which created many injuries, abrasions. They can always take legal action, either against the provincial governor of Luanda, who ordered this, or against the provincial police commander, who was also the one who ordered his agents to act with that load, with that violence and prevent the carrying out of a manifestation of a constitutionally enshrined right", he highlighted.
"We know that both in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the African Charter the right to demonstrate is enshrined there and we do not understand why the Angolan Government time and again refuses to have this right observed, guaranteed to citizens", he added.
On Saturday, the police prevented the holding of a peaceful demonstration of solidarity in favor of the release of citizens arrested for political reasons and another promoted by the political project PRA-JA Servir Angola, which resulted in dozens of injuries and arrests.
