Africa-Press – Angola. A court in the Angolan province of Bié sentenced three UNITA (opposition) activists to between one and two years in prison for assaulting police officers, with the party citing “political condemnation.”
The condemnation of the activists of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA, the largest opposition party) refers to events that occurred during a march promoted by this party on Saturday.
Felizardo Nangulo was sentenced to two years in prison, and Amélia Chinguto and Aurélio Mesquita, secretary and deputy secretary of UNITA in Cuito, capital of Bié, to one year and two months in prison, reported the Angolan press.
In a statement, the Angolan National Police (PNA) indicated that the convicts attacked the force’s officers assigned to ensure the UNITA march commemorating the birthday of its founder, Jonas Savimbi, held on August 23.
“This irresponsible act, whose repugnant images are circulating on social media, is an attack on the authority of the State and constitutes a serious affront to public order, discipline, and respect for institutions,” reads the statement from the Bié Provincial Command of the PNA.
Speaking to Lusa, UNITA’s provincial secretary in Bié, Celso Torres, denied the accusations leveled against the militants and considered that the “conviction was political and aimed at silencing the opposition.”
“It was a politically motivated conviction. We are in the month of our patron saint, the founding president of UNITA, and this political act, held on the 23rd in Cuito, was communicated to the police a week beforehand, along with the corresponding itinerary, and there was police interference during the march,” he explained.
According to the UNITA official, Amélia Chinguto and Aurélio Mesquita were illegally detained when they went to court to present the documentation that the party sent to the police reporting the march and its itinerary.
During the march, Celso Torres explained, police officers “interfered,” trying to change the route, a situation that generated “some agitation and uproar,” especially because the police officers, he noted, “were also attacking the UNITA militants.”
“They arrested our officials who went to court to present documentation about the march. These are politically motivated convictions; no one can justify what’s happening, because the police know that [it was] the officer who behaved badly (…).
We will appeal this decision, which is a way of silencing the opposition,” he concluded.
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