Transparency International has joined
with Transparência e Integridade, Associação Cívica, its partner in Portugal,
and Rafael Marques de Morais, the winner of the 2013 Transparency International
Integrity Award to call on the government of Angola to stop the harassment of
civil society activists.
In his acceptance speech for the
Integrity Award at a ceremony in Berlin on 8 November, Marques, a journalist
from Angola, made a passionate plea for civil society to be given space to
operate without harassment.
He dedicated the award to Manuel
Chivonde Nito Alves, a 17 year-old activist who had been released from jail
that day following his arrest for attempting to print T-shirts criticising the
president of Angola, Africa's second longest serving leader. The charges
against Nito Alves, however, have not been dropped.
Transparency International and
its network of more than 100 organisations work around the world to fight
corruption and to create a safe space for civil society to speak up against
corruption without persecution or fear of reprisal. Angola ranks 101 out of 109
at the bottom of the 2013 CIVICUS Enabling Environment index, a study of how
open and safe a country is for civil society activism.
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