Rafael Marques de Morais sentenced to a six-month suspended jail term
Following the backtracking in Rafael Marques de Morais' defamation caseand the announcement of the public prosecutor's intention to move forward witha sentencing in spite of an out of court settlement reached between parties,the Luanda Provincial Tribunal sentenced Mr. Marques de Morais to a six monthsjail term on defamation charges.
The sentence, which can be served at any time for two years if Mr.Marques de Morais is found guilty of any crime, was handed down on May 28,2015, only three days after the announcement of the public prosecutor.
“The sentencing of Rafael Marques de Morais is yetanother step in the uninterrupted judicial harassment that he has been the target of for more than two years and whichaims at sanctioning his outstanding human rights work”, said Karim Lahidji, FIDH President.
Mr. Marques de Morais is a well-known Angolan journalist who has beenfacing continuous judicial harassment since the publication in 2011, of hisbook, “Blood Diamonds: Corruption and Torture in Angola”, in which hedocuments and denounces the corruption, allegations of homicides, torture,forced displacement of civilian settlements and intimidation of inhabitants ofthe diamond-mining areas of Angola’s Lundas region by some state agents andbusiness entrepreneurs.
“Authorities in Angola must immediately andunconditionally overturn Rafael Marques de Morais' sentence and stop harassinghuman rights defenders. Thissituation must come to an end and dissenting voices must be accepted”, concludedGerald Staberock, OMCT Secretary General.
Originally facing nine charges for defamation, Mr. Marques de Morais wasinformed of fifteen additional charges being brought against him, shortlybefore the opening of his trial on March 24, 2015. Furthermore, severalprocedural irregularities were observed since Mr. Marques de Morais wasindicted in January 2013.
The harassment against Mr. Marques de Morais has also taken the form ofcyber-attacks and cyber-espionage. His blog, Maka Angola, has beenblocked on several occasions and his personal laptop has been attacked withmalware programs.
More generally, the Observatory calls upon authorities in Angola toensure the respect of the rights of civil society actors in the country, where,as documented in a recent Observatory report[1], human rights defenders and journalists, remainsubjected to judicial harassment, acts of intimidation, threats and other formsof restrictions to their freedom of association and expression.
The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (OBS) wascreated in 1997 by FIDH and OMCT. The objective of this programme is tointervene to prevent or remedy to situations of repression against human rightsdefenders.
For more information, please contact:
· FIDH: Arthur Manet/Lucie Kroening: + 33 (0) 1 43 55 25 18
· OMCT: Miguel MartínZumalacárregui: + 41 (0) 22 809 49 24
[1] The report isavailable for download here: Publication of a Mission Report: “They want to keep us vulnerable”: Human Rights Defenders Under Pressure
