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Article

20 Mar 2018

Author:
AFP, SowetanLIVE (South Africa)

Angola: Human rights defender Rafael Marques again faces charges for denouncing corruption

"Prominent Angola activist in court over 'insult'", 20 Mar 2018

Prominent Angolan human rights activist and journalist Rafael Marques de Morais appeared in court Monday on charges of insulting a public authority after questioning the integrity of a former attorney general. The charges relate to a story Marques...wrote in 2016 about the country's former attorney general's purchase of rural land... Marques, who runs the news website Maka Angola, and Mariano Bras,...journalist who reproduced the article, face up to three years in jail. Marques's lawyer...sought to have the charges dropped...Marques was charged for alleging that ex-attorney general Joao Maria de Sousa exploited the country's weak land rights laws by paying the price of rural land for what would later become prime beach-front real estate...In 2015, ..campaigner was convicted of defaming military generals...and was handed a six-month suspended prison sentence.  In September, President Joao Lourenco succeeded Dos Santos, who had ruled Angola...for 38 years, during which time the country's rich and powerful profited from...oil reserves at the expense of the poor. Lourenco assumed power on the promise of eradicating corruption..."It is absurd that I am charged for denouncing the corruption of a prosecutor in a country whose president has specifically promised to fight corruption," Marques [said].