According to the president of the MIC, Carlos Manuel Vemba, after eight months, the trial was scheduled for 10:00 am on Thursday, with the defendants, António Tuma and Alexandre Dunge, being accused of the crimes of rebellion, disturbance of the functioning of public institutions, group terrorist and criminal association.
Asked what the expectations are, Carlos Manuel Vemba said that "they are not great".
"We know that we live in a state where the judicial dictatorship is felt throughout its sphere, (but) we will be there to know what the verdict will be", he said, in statements to Lusa.
Carlos Vemba expressed concern about the lack of a defender for the defendants in view of the suspension, three months ago, of the lawyer who had been appointed by the Angolan Bar Association.
According to the president of the MIC, when the activists were arrested, the organization refused to work with lawyers provided by the Public Ministry and chose lawyer Mananga Padi for the defense.
"The defense lawyer remains suspended and we don't know how the hearing will be, but the position will be the same from the beginning", he said, adding that the organization sought other legal assistants, and two should be confirmed this Wednesday.
For Carlos Vemba, "the process is riddled with many irregularities", noting that the two individuals were detained at their homes without showing any official documents supporting the detentions.
"There are no grounds on which the Public Ministry justifies the arrests. We are facing a dictatorship, a justice in which the gag speaks louder and we will not allow that. If we are in a democratic and lawful state, it is normal for everyone to express or expressing their feelings and a publication on social networks cannot be a reason for detention. We will be there and see what the verdict will be, we are prepared for anything", he stressed.
The two activists were detained in October last year, while António Victor Tuma, assistant secretary for information at the MIC, has been detained, and Alexandre Dunge has been on provisional release since May this year, for health reasons.
At the time of the arrest of the two activists, in statements to Lusa, the secretary for Information and Communication of the MIC, Sebastião Macaia, said that in the previous three months, together with his deputy, they had been carrying out political campaigns, through social networks, appealing to the natives of that oil province of Angola not to participate in the general elections scheduled for August this year, defending a referendum to resolve the situation in Cabinda.
The independence movement Front for the Liberation of the State of Cabinda (FLEC) has been fighting for several years for the independence of the territory, from which a large part of Angolan oil comes, claiming that the enclave was a Portuguese protectorate, as established in the Treaty of Simulambuco, signed in 1885, and not an integral part of Angolan territory.
However, the Government refuses to recognize a situation of instability in that province, always stressing the unity of the territory.
