PortugalAnon Demand Release of Activists, Attack Angola Government Websites

The Portuguese Anonymous faction have attacked dozens of Government of Angola sites, in a “fight for democracy.”

In a statement released, they refer to the detention of 17 activists who have been sentenced to prison; jail terms ranging from 2 to 8 years.

The larger sentence of 8 years was given to Angolan journalist Domingos da Cruz’s whose book was one of two on the reading list of the #Angola15 arrested. The title translates as “tools to destroy a dictator and avoid a new dictatorship.” The book was being read at a weekly book group meeting in Luanda, to discuss democracy and governance, when the # arrests occurred, including that of popular rapper-activist Luaty Beirão.

The other book read at the time was University of Massachusetts Professor Gene Sharp’s From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation.

The official line from the country’s Interior Ministry was released shortly after the arrest on June 20, 2015, stating they activists were “thirteen Angolan citizens [were] caught red-handed as they prepared to carry out acts aimed at disrupting public order and security in the country.”

Reported by TIME in October 2015, the activists had been detained without a trial for three months.

Amnesty International have called the sentencing “an affront to justice,” saying that “the activists have been wrongly convicted in a deeply-politicised trial. They are the victims of a government determined to intimidate anyone who dares to question its repressive policies.”

PortugalAnon DDos’d and defaced multiple government sites, demanding a release of the activists.

Sources: TIME, The Guardian, PortugalAnon.

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