Human rights group accuses Angola of intimidating people to prevent march

Human rights group accuses Angola of intimidating people to prevent march

2011-03-10 22:10:33 GMT+7 (ICT)

LUANDA, ANGOLA (BNO NEWS) -- Human Rights Watch on Thursday said the Angola government carried out an intimidation campaign against anti-government demonstrations inspired by events in North Africa.

"The government and ruling party officials used baseless claims of possible violence, including an imminent outbreak of civil war, to deter people from participating in the demonstration," Human Rights Watch said in a statement.

Several protesters planning to take to the streets to demand the departure of President Eduardo dos Santos, who has been in power for 32 years, were arrested along with journalists the night before the event, which was announced for March 7. The demonstration, which had been called by an anonymous group using the internet in February, did not take place.

Police also arrested a group of 17 young rap musicians in Luanda's city center who were reading poems and distributing pamphlets saying they intended to participate in the protests later that day. All were held in custody by the criminal investigation police and released the following morning without any further explanations. The Luanda police spokesman, Jorge Bengue, later said the rappers had been arrested to avoid potential clashes with an unidentified group of residents allegedly heading for the same location.

The New York-based organization "expressed concern at anonymous death threats against opposition politicians and human rights lawyers, arbitrary arrests of journalists and activists, and misuse of the state media for partisan political purposes."

On February 28, a number of small opposition groups announced they would join the demonstration to express their concern about social and economic exclusion of the majority of the Angolan population, corruption, intimidation, and lack of freedom of expression. On March 1, the governor of Luanda, José Maria Ferraz dos Santos, unlawfully banned a planned peaceful vigil by the same opposition groups set for March 6, denying the protesters' constitutional right to peaceful assembly.

The ruling party called for a pro-government "peace march" in Luanda and several provincial towns on March 5, and reportedly government officials forced teachers and public servants to participate. Teachers were threatened with job loss or salary cuts and obliged to press their students to participate by threatening them with "problems" if they stayed home.

"Angola's ruling party should not scare people with renewed violence to deter them from freely expressing their views," Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

"Such disrespect of basic political freedoms does not bode well for Angola's upcoming general elections in 2012," he added.

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