"It is with great concern that Friends of Angola (FOA) learned, once again, of the abduction of activist Laurinda Gouveia, her husband and her two-year-old son, when they tried to catch a taxi after taking part in a peaceful demonstration, on January 4th of this year", states the repudiation note sent to the President, João Lourenço.
At issue is the attempted march scheduled for last Thursday, in Luanda, which aimed to denounce and demand the arrest of activists Adolfo Campos, Gildo da Silva Moreira "Tanaice Neutro", Hermenegildo André "Gildo das Ruas" and Abraão Pedro Santos, arrested in September 2023 for trying to organize a peaceful demonstration in Luanda, and digital influencer Ana Miguel "Neth Nahara".
Laurinda Gouveia and her husband were acquitted, on Friday, by the Luanda Provincial Court, of the crimes of insulting sovereign bodies and disobeying the dispersal order, of which they were accused.
FoA also lamented the situation of lawyer Zola Bambi, who on Friday was taken to a police station by police, where he was detained for several hours.
"It is public knowledge that Angola is experiencing a judicial crisis and that the executive power has been the biggest violator of the Constitution and the fundamental rights of Angolans, including the right to freedom of assembly, expression, thought and a life with dignity", he highlights up in the note.
To the President of the Republic, the organization emphasizes that "the executive power cannot continue to use the judicial bodies, the National Police, the State Intelligence and Security Service and the provincial governor of Luanda as a mere instrument to arrest anyone who has an opinion different, nor to intimidate Angolan women and men unhappy with the current governance and cultivate terror and a culture of fear against everyone who uses constitutional law to demonstrate peacefully".
The organization highlights that these systematic violations have been growing in Angola, particularly during the mandate of the current President of the Republic, "and is, without a doubt, a violation of the Angolan Constitution and international human rights standards".
According to the FoA, the recent illegal detentions or arrests of Angolan citizens, based on article 333 of the new Angolan Penal Code, "which condemns "offenses" against the figure of the President of the Republic and other sovereign bodies, not only puts an obstacle to freedom of expression and demonstration, but it is also a recent example that Angola is far from being a Democratic State of Law".
FoA demanded that the Angolan authorities open an investigation to determine the veracity of the facts and bring to justice those responsible for the systematic violations of the Angolan Constitution because they constitute "a clear violation of universally recognized human rights, such as the right to freedom of expression, assembly and thought".
