Ver Angola

Defense

Police deny existence of dead in clashes and guarantees use of non-lethal means

The police denied that one person died during the clashes in Luanda with young people who wanted to demonstrate, ensuring that they used only non-lethal means to enforce the law.

: Borralho Ndomba/DW
Borralho Ndomba/DW  

Speaking to journalists, Luanda's provincial commander, Eduardo Cerqueira, said that the citizen who was presumed dead was admitted to the Américo Boavida hospital and received hospital treatment.

“He fell when he was fleeing police action to disperse people. We were dispersing in two directions, because they shouldn't be gathering and because they were making contempt against public authorities, throwing objects and committing a series of acts that constitute a violation of the law ”, he justified.

The police prevented, on the day that 45 years of independence were celebrated in Angola, a demonstration prohibited by the Provincial Government of Luanda, alleging non-compliance with schedules, lack of addresses of some organizers and non-compliance with the measures in force in the presidential decree on the situation of calamity that prevent gatherings of more than five people on the public road.

Without indicating how many protesters were detained, Eduardo Cerqueira said that "several citizens were collected in order to remove them from the areas where the facts were being recorded", including two journalists who were taken to the police station.

"They were questioned, were taken to the police station and, after being identified, sent to their homes", said the official, declaring that an order was given "immediately" to return the means (cameras, cameras and mobile phones), although it is possible that "some formalities have not yet been fulfilled ”.

"We want to comply with the determination of the President of the Republic who says that journalists must exercise their activity, within the scope of their freedom of action", he stressed.

The commander revealed that “some punctual arrests” were also recorded: one individual who set fire to a fueling station, two who intended to set fire to tires next to another bomb, one protester with a warrant for a qualified robbery, another for possession illegal drug and another that damaged the glass of a car.

According to the official, the rest were released and “advised not to appear again in demonstrations that do not meet the requirements, in terms of the law, for them to take place”.

Eduardo Cerqueira said that the police did not use live bullets. "That would be genocide," he said, adding that the wounded are the result of the charge "applied against those who apply charges against the police" in order to "neutralize individuals".

“The police used their own non-lethal means for these types of events. All the pops and noises they heard are from non-lethal elements. It is possible that some, as is the case with tear gas, may cause some discomfort to this or that person ”, he said.

There are no reports of injuries among the police, but there are two people in the hospital, he admitted: the one who was presumed dead, but who is "out of danger", and another who is being assisted, without confirming whether he is the activist. Nito Alves.

The police commander also stressed that "nothing failed" in the police action.

"What only failed was the obstinacy, the stubbornness of some citizens to demonstrate when they did not meet the requirements that the law guides from the point of view of the state of calamity, not from the point of view of demonstration", he considered.

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