Angolan activist Benedito (Dito) Dalí, one of the organizers of the demonstration planned for today prevented by the police, classified the authorities’ action to prevent the protest action as “a terror”. Some media outlets also reveal that a person was killed by the police.
The celebration of Angola’s independence day is not at all peaceful. The reports are very violent in the Angolan capital, in Luanda, and some media outlets reveal that there is already at least one dead.
According to the publication O Novo Jornal, from Luanda, “a young man who, this morning, was part of the concentration in the vicinity of the Congolese Triangle, was shot dead in the head at a time when shots were being fired by the National Police to disperse the protesters ”
Activist Benedito Dalí reveals what he sees on the streets of Luanda.
“A situation of terror that we are experiencing here, a true political state, which this regime has institutionalized in this country, which does not allow people to speak freely in the face of discontent,” he told Agência Lusa Dito Dali, of the demonstration he had as his aim to demand better living conditions for citizens and to set a date for the first municipal elections.
According to the activist, one of the faces of the well-known group 15 + 2, detained and tried in 2017, the protesters were removed after having managed to get near the cemetery of Santa Ana, a place marked for the concentration.
“We are here in a neighborhood where we hide, but we are leaving to be able to read the manifesto and appeal to the staff to return to their homes,” said Dito Dali.
For the activist, “the essentials have already been achieved”, because they managed to “leave the machine desperate”.
“They moved the State machine because of a simple demonstration,” said Dito Dali, stressing that “there are several detainees, some injured,” including activist Nito Alves, who is receiving assistance at Hospital do Prenda.
Asked to comment on the police accusation of disorderly acts committed by the protesters, Dito Dali said that “that was always their language”.
“They have always accused us of disorder, of burning tires, which is not true, we know that the police have been infiltrating agents in the demonstrations to create disorder and disturbance, and then assign responsibility to the demonstrators,” he retorted.
Angola marks today 45 years of the country’s independence, being today a public holiday, in which a demonstration is planned, organized by a group of young activists, with the objective of demanding better living conditions and that a date be set for the first municipal elections.
The Government of the Province of Luanda has banned this demonstration, citing several reasons, one of which is the failure to comply with the Presidential Decree on the state of public calamity, which prevents gatherings of more than five people on the streets, as a measure to prevent and combat spread of covid-19.
