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A global media freedom organisation has called on the Angolan government to immediately drop charges against two journalists who published an article exposing alleged corruption.
The two journalists have been charged with crimen injuria, which is similar to insult laws, according to a statement by Angela Quintal, Africa programme coordinator for the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Rafael Marques de Morais, who runs the anti-corruption website Maka Angola told CPJ that he was questioned for three hours on Tuesday before being charged over an article he wrote that alleged wrongdoing by Angola’s attorney-general João Maria de Sousa, in his purchase of state-owned land.
Mariano Bras, who republished the article in his weekly paper, O Crime, said he was also questioned the following day before being charged. “Bras said he was questioned about the veracity of the report in his paper and for details about who owned the publication,” said Quintal.
If convicted, the journalists could be jailed for six months and fined.CPJ attempted to contact the office of the attorney general for comment but its calls went unanswered.
Marques de Morais was given a suspended six-month prison sentence last year for defaming Angolan generals in his book Blood Diamonds: Torture and Corruption in Angola that documented allegations of torture and murder in diamond fields, according to reports.
In 1999 he was imprisoned for 43 days without charge after referring to President Jose Eduardo dos Santos as a dictator.
Bras has been under investigation since June 2015 for alleged abuse of press freedom, defamation, and insult of public authorities, following a complaint by Angola’s army chief and the minister of interior, according to rights group, Front Line Defenders.
Insult laws remain on statute books of many countries around the globe, and CPJ and other media freedom rights campaign groups have held sustained campaigns for them to be dropped, arguing that they are an infringement of freedom of speech and basic human rights.
The spotlight on Turkey this year, 1845 cases have been opened against journalists, writers, politicians and even schoolchildren, for insulting president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, according to a recent report in The New York Times. The crime carries a penalty of up to four years in jail.
