Amnesty International (AI) has accused police in Angola of shooting children, firing tear gas grenades into crowds, “burning arms and legs” and “brutally beating people in their custody, causing deep physical and emotional scars,” in a report released on Wednesday.
In the report, which analyses police abuse and consequent disrespect for human rights at 11 demonstrations in Angola between November 2020 and June 2023, AI finds that law enforcement officers attacked protesters with live bullets and tear gas, killing at least 17 people, and beat and arbitrarily detained others, in violation of national and international law, but none of the officers or their superiors were brought to justice.
The report ‘Broken promises: Demonstrators amid tear gas, bullets and batons in Angola’ documents cases in which police “shot children, fired tear gas grenades into crowds, burning arms and legs, and brutally beat people in their custody, causing deep physical and emotional scars.”
The non-government organisation notes that the authorities have until now not held anyone accountable for these human rights violations, with AI’s deputy regional director for Eastern and Southern Africa, Khanyo Farisè, quoted in the statement as saying that the victims and their families “deserve justice now.”
As Farisè recalled, Angola has ratified the main international human rights instruments from which standards for policing demonstrations can be drawn, including the Protocol on Civil and Political Rights, and is a signatory state to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
“The country’s Constitution and its Police Act guarantee the right to freedom of peaceful demonstration and expression, especially in the context of demonstrations,” he said. “Under international human rights law, states have an obligation to respect and guarantee the right to peaceful demonstration.”
The office of Angola’s attorney general should, he added, immediately launch investigations into the killings of demonstrators and bystanders by the police and ensure that the perpetrators, whether agents or senior officers, are brought to justice in fair trials.
According to AI, Angola’s security forces have a long and well-documented history of repressing peaceful demonstrations using excessive or unnecessary force, leading in some cases to unlawful killings, intimidation, beatings and arbitrary arrest or detention.
“Although the justification for the use of force has varied, the methods used to suppress demonstrations, such as real bullets, tear gas, dogs and batons, are the same,” the report adds.
One of the episodes of police abuse cited in the document took place in Huambo on 5 June 2023, when officers from the Rapid Intervention Police (PIR) fired live bullets at a crowd that had taken to the streets to protest against rising fuel prices.
“At least four people were killed and among the victims was Cristiano Luis Pambasangue Tchiuta, a 12-year-old boy who was passing by on his way to school,” it recalls.
Another episode was during a demonstration in Luanda on 17 June 2023, when a woman, Isabel Guedes, was hit by a tear gas grenade and suffered second degree burns to her legs, requiring surgery and skin grafts.
Under Angolan law, the report notes, the organisers of demonstrations are obliged to notify the authorities at least three working days before a planned demonstration.
For their part, the authorities must provide a reasonable justification for banning a demonstration and respond within 24 hours of receiving a notification, but there are cases in which the authorities have ignored these legal requirements and restricted demonstrations without providing an acceptable reason, the report stresses.
Lusa
