{"id":56558,"date":"2015-10-23T23:29:40","date_gmt":"2015-10-23T21:29:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/2015\/10\/un-expert-urges-angola-to-release-fourteen-rights-activists-detained-for-criticizing-the-government\/"},"modified":"2015-10-23T23:29:40","modified_gmt":"2015-10-23T21:29:40","slug":"un-expert-urges-angola-to-release-fourteen-rights-activists-detained-for-criticizing-the-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/un-expert-urges-angola-to-release-fourteen-rights-activists-detained-for-criticizing-the-government\/","title":{"rendered":"UN expert urges Angola to release fourteen rights activists detained for criticizing the Government"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                        <span dir=\"ltr\"><br \/>\n                                                    GENEVA, Switzerland, October 23, 2015\/APO (African Press Organization)\/ &#8212;<br \/>\n                                                <\/span><\/p>\n<p>The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Michel Forst, today urged the Government of Angola to release fourteen activists arrested in June after taking part in peaceful meetings to criticize lack of good governance in the country.<br \/>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDeprivation of liberty on the sole ground of having promoted good governance and exercised the rights to free expression and peaceful assembly may be considered arbitrary,\u201d Mr. Forst warned referring to the case of Luaty Beir\u00e3o, a prominent Angolan musician and rights activist, and the other defenders arrested.<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cSuch criticism is not only fully legitimate according to Angola\u2019s obligations under human rights law; it is also essential to the free and public debate necessary for a healthy civil society in the country,\u201d the independent expert stressed. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\nAfter their arrest, the \u2018Angola fourteen\u2019 were charged in September, together with two women rights defenders who remain at liberty awaiting trial, for the \u2018preparatory acts to practice rebellion\u2019 and \u2018plotting\u2019 against state institutions, both of which are considered to be crimes against the security of the Angolan State. Held in pre-trial detention for longer than 90 days, the pro-democracy activists were formally informed of the indictment on 8 October and their trial is to be held in mid-NovemberDisturbing allegations have surfaced of ill-treatment of the activists during the detention. Some detainees have resorted to hunger strike in protest, triggering concerns about their health conditions.<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cDefending and promoting human right has become an extraordinarily dangerous activity in many countries,\u201d the Special Rapporteur said quoting his latest report* to the UN General Assembly. \u201cAttacks against human rights defenders can be seen as devious attempts to undermine human rights.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\nIn his report, the independent expert draws attention to worrying global trends of threats and challenges facing human rights defenders, who are increasingly attacked or arrested, threatened or harassed, intimidated or detained.<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cAs the UN Human Rights Council independent envoy on human rights defenders, I call on the charges against all the rights activists to be dropped and that the \u2018Angolan fourteen\u2019 are released immediately,\u201d the expert urged.<\/p>\n<p>\nMr. Forst\u2019s statement has been endorsed by the Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, Maina Kiai; the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom or opinion and expression, David Kaye; the Special Rapporteur on torture, Juan E. M\u00e9ndez; and the Chair of the Working Group on arbitrary detention, Seong-Phil Hong.<\/p>\n<p>\n(*) Check the Special Rapporteur\u2019s report to the UN General Assembly: http:\/\/www.ohchr.org\/EN\/Issues\/SRHRDefenders\/Pages\/AnnualReports.aspx<\/p>\n<p>\n<br \/>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>GENEVA, Switzerland, October 23, 2015\/APO (African Press Organization)\/ &#8212; The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Michel Forst, today urged the Government of Angola to release fourteen activists arrested in June after taking part in peaceful meetings to criticize lack of good governance in the country. \u00a0 \u201cDeprivation of liberty [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584],"tags":[428,4585,830],"class_list":{"0":"post-56558","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-africa-news-2","7":"tag-africa","8":"tag-apo","9":"tag-news","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56558\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}