Torture by Police, Forced Disappearance & Other Ill Treatment In the early years of the 21st Century, 2000 to
2025 gvnet.com/torture/Angola.htm
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CAUTION: The following links
have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in Angola. Some of these links may lead to websites
that present allegations that are unsubstantiated or even false. No
attempt has been made to validate their authenticity or to verify their content. HOW TO USE THIS WEBPAGE Students If you are looking for
material to use in a term-paper, you are advised to scan the postings on this
page and others to see which aspects of Torture by Authorities are of
particular interest to you. You might
be interested in exploring the moral justification for inflicting pain or
inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment in order to obtain critical
information that may save countless lives, or to elicit a confession for a
criminal act, or to punish someone to teach him a lesson outside of the
courtroom. Perhaps your paper might
focus on some of the methods of torture, like fear, extreme temperatures,
starvation, thirst, sleep deprivation, suffocation, or immersion in freezing
water. On the other hand, you might
choose to write about the people acting in an official capacity who
perpetrate such cruelty. There is a
lot to the subject of Torture by Authorities.
Scan other countries as well as this one. Draw comparisons between activity in
adjacent countries and/or regions.
Meanwhile, check out some of the Term-Paper
resources that are available on-line. ***
ARCHIVES *** 2020 Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices: Angola U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, 30 March 2021 www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/angola/
[accessed 4 July
2021] TORTURE AND OTHER
CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT Periodic reports
continued of beatings and other abuses both on the way to and inside police
stations during interrogations. The government acknowledged that at times
members of the security forces used excessive force when apprehending individuals.
Police authorities openly condemned some acts of violence or excessive force
against individuals and asked that victims report abuses to the national
police or the Office of the Public Defender (Ombudsman). Several reports indicated
that police used excessive force to enforce the state of emergency
implemented to combat COVID-19. On March 30, a video shared widely on social
media showed police beating several men with nightsticks while the men laid prostrate on the ground inside a police station. On October 24, a
peaceful demonstration against the government demanding employment and local
elections was violently repressed with several persons injured, 103 persons
detained on charges of disobedience, and unsubstantiated reports of two
persons killed. According to one human rights lawyer, Salvador Freire, some
of the detainees, in particular the organizers of the demonstration,
were subjected to harsh and violent treatment while in custody. PRISON AND DETENTION
CENTER CONDITIONS Prison and
detention center conditions were harsh and life threatening due to
overcrowding, a lack of medical care, corruption, and violence. One human rights
lawyer described the conditions at the Cabinda civil jail, where three of his
constituents are in pretrial detention, as terrible. He said prisoners had no
potable water for drinking or bathing; prisoners defecated in the same
location where they ate; eight inmates shared a single cell, and others were
obliged to sleep in the corridors. There was no social distancing to prevent
the spread of COVID-19. ARREST PROCEDURES
AND TREATMENT OF DETAINEES Pretrial Detention:
Excessively long pretrial detention continued to be a serious problem. An
inadequate number of judges and poor communication among authorities
contributed to the problem. In some cases authorities held inmates in prison
for up to five years in pretrial detention. Freedom House
Country Report 2020 Edition freedomhouse.org/country/angola/freedom-world/2020 [accessed 14 May
2020] F3. IS THERE PROTECTION FROM THE ILLEGITIMATE
USE OF PHYSICAL FORCE AND FREEDOM FROM WAR AND INSURGENCIES? Security forces
enjoy impunity for violent acts, including torture and extrajudicial killings
committed against detainees, activists, and others, although the frequency of
politicized abuses has apparently decreased in recent years. Angolan prisons
are reported to be overcrowded, unhygienic, lacking in necessities, and
plagued by sexual abuse. Torture, beatings
and murder: Inside the new brutal 'blood diamonds' scandal fuelled by pure greed in Africa's mines Flora Drury, Daily
Mail, 17 April 2015 [accessed 5 May
2015] * Rafael Marques
spent years exposing atrocities in the mining industry * Revealed how men
were beaten to death by army and private guards * Others were tortured
because they could not pay the $20 bribes * Angola produces
about nine per cent of the world's diamonds * Yet Marques on
trial - because the revelations angered industry bosses. Human
Rights Watch World Report 2015 - Events of 2014 Human Rights Watch,
29 January 2015 www.hrw.org/world-report/2015/...
or www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/wr2015_web.pdf [accessed 18 March
2015] ANGOLA FREEDOM OF
EXPRESSION
-- On February 2, police in the police headquarters of Cacuaco,
Luanda, arrested Queirós Anastácio
Chilúvia, editor of Rádio
Despertar, which is owned by the opposition party,
National Union for the Total Liberation of Angola (UNITA). He was there to
seek an official explanation from the police after trasmitting,
live on Rádio Despertar,
cries for help from jailed detainees. Chilúvia was
held in custody for five days without charge. On February 7, a court
sentenced him to 180 days in prison, suspended for two years, and a fine of
$600. On May 28, police
briefly arrested Rádio Despertar
journalist Adérito Pascual
at a police station in Viana when he asked for an
official statement for a live broadcast on a violent operation to remove
street traders. Police seized his phone, recorder, and identification, and
government agents forced him to delete videos he had taken. Angola
and Guinea Bissau take positive steps to address torture International
Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims IRCT, 08-10-2013 www.irct.org/media-and-resources/irct-news/show-news.aspx?PID=13767&NewsId=3826 [accessed 13 Jan
2014] irct.org/media-and-resources/latest-news/article/876 [accessed 17 July
2017] Since the IRCT sent
an open letter to the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP) less
than a year ago, both Angola and Guinea Bissau -- two of CPLP’s eight members
-- took positive steps to address torture within their jurisdictions. On the same
occasion, both countries signed the Optional Protocol to the Convention,
thereby pledging to establish a mechanism to allow regular preventive visits
to places of detention, such as prisons, police stations and detention centres. According to
Amnesty International, “some provisions of the [Angolan] national law
relating to the police are contrary to international human rights law and may
encourage the use of torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.” Policing
and Human Rights -- Assessing southern African countries’ compliance with the
SARPCCO Code of Conduct for Police Officials Edited by Amanda Dissel & Cheryl Frank, African Policing Civilian
Oversight Forum APCOF, 2012 ISBN:
978-1-920489-81-6 [accessed 25 March
2014] [ANGOLA] -- ARTICLE
4: TORTURE AND CRUEL, INHUMAN AND DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT No police official shall, under any circumstances,
inflict, instigate, or tolerate any act of torture and other cruel, inhuman
or degrading treatment or punishment of any person. The UN Working
Group on Arbitrary Detention was concerned about the fact that there is
almost no legal representation for suspects or detainees, and that police
generally conduct their investigations unsupervised by the magistrate of
prosecutions. They argued that this has a negative impact on the quality of
work of prosecutors, who tend to ‘post-facto legalise
police misconduct such as unlawful interrogation and incriminations based on
confessions obtained only by a police investigator’. This could lead to the
situation where allegations that the suspect was tortured by the police are
ignored by the courts. The Working Group received many reports of allegations
of torture and ill-treatment in police detention facilities and in prisons,
and occurring during interrogation, and noted that complaints of
ill-treatment are hardly ever investigated and perpetrators almost never
brought to justice. As an indication of the poor response to these
allegations, the Working Group noted that the Luanda police were unable to
provide statistics on the number of investigations or disciplinary actions
taken against police for alleged misconduct or abuse. The Angola
Anti-militaristic Initiative for Human Rights (IAADH) denounced the increasing
use of disproportional and unjustified use of force by the police, mostly to
break up demonstrations, torture, disappearances and detainees kept
incommunicado, without access to lawyers, family or medical care. Search … AMNESTY
INTERNATIONAL For current
articles:: Search Amnesty
International Website www.amnesty.org/en/search/?q=angola+torture&ref=&year=&lang=en&adv=1&sort=relevance [accessed 25 December
2018] ***
EARLIER EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE ABOVE *** Human
Rights Reports » 2006 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, March 6, 2007 www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2006/78718.htm [accessed 16 January
2013] 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2006/78718.htm [accessed 2 July
2019] TORTURE
AND OTHER CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT – The constitution
and law prohibit such practices; however, government security forces
tortured, beat, and otherwise abused persons. Abuses in police stations
during interrogations were common. Police and other security forces were
rarely held accountable, although the government punished some violators
administratively or by public prosecution. Abuses by the army
continued, but decreased in comparison with previous years. The human rights
situation in Cabinda continued to improve; however, there were isolated
reports of violence by FAA troops, including beatings and other forms of
intimidation, against the civilian population. The International Committee of
the Red Cross (ICRC) noted that the attention of Cabindan
military commanders and FAA officials to human rights issues had
substantially improved since high-level command changes were effected in
2004. The ICRC stated that internal investigative and judicial bodies were
functioning and that a large number of FAA officials were held accountable
for their actions. Soldiers accused of unlawful behavior faced prosecution in
civilian criminal courts. Three soldiers were convicted in the 2005 killing
of a village administrator and sentenced to 16-year prison terms. Freedom House
Country Report - Political Rights: 6 Civil Liberties: 5 Status: Not Free 2009 Edition www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2009/angola [accessed 16 January
2013] LONG URL
ç 2009 Country Reports begin on Page 21 [accessed 11 May
2020] Lengthy pretrial
detention is common, and prisoners are subject to torture, severe
overcrowding, sexual abuse, extortion, and a lack of basic services. Despite
increased resources and human rights training, security forces continue to
commit abuses with impunity. An estimated four million weapons in civilian
hands threaten to contribute to lawlessness, and the diamond-mining industry
is afflicted by murders and other abuses by government and private security
personnel. The government created a national justice ombudsman’s office in
2005, but civil society groups objected to their exclusion from the process. Accusations of
severe rights abuses, including extrajudicial executions, have been leveled
throughout the duration of the Cabinda conflict. In 2007, UN investigators
reported that 15 civilians were being held incommunicado at military bases in
Cabinda under charges of “crimes against the state”; according to HRW, they
were tortured and held in inhumane conditions. One of the civilians,
journalist Fernando Lelo, was sentenced along with
four rebels to 12 years in prison in September 2008 U.S. Library of
Congress
- Country Study [dated] Library of Congress
Call Number DT1269 .A54 1990 www.loc.gov/collections/country-studies/?q=DT1269+.A54+1990 [accessed 17 July
2017] HUMAN RIGHTS – Amnesty International
also reported numerous instances of torture during the late 1970s and early
1980s. Ministry of State Security officials were reported to have permitted
or sanctioned torture of criminals and political prisoners by such methods as
beating, whipping, and electric shock. Political detainees arrested for
offenses such as criticizing government policies were deprived of food and
water for several days and subjected to frequent and severe beatings during
interrogation and confinement. Although allegations of torture and
mistreatment remained common in the mid 1980s , such practices did not appear to have been systematic. All
material used herein reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107
for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT
ARTICLES. Cite this
webpage as: Patt, Prof. Martin, " Torture by Police, Forced
Disappearance & Other Ill Treatment in the early years of the 21st
Century- Angola", http://gvnet.com/torture/Angola.htm, [accessed
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