The Committee to Protect Journalists and two Angola-based media rights organizations have made a joint submission to the United Nations Human Rights Council, calling on authorities in the southern African nation to improve its record on ensuring journalists’ safety and press freedom.
The submission, dated July 16, 2024, was made ahead of Angola’s January 2025 Universal Periodic Review (UPR), during which the U.N. member states on the council will assess its human rights record and make recommendations for improvement in keeping with its human rights obligations under international law.
In the submission, CPJ, the Angolan Journalists’ Syndicate, and the Angolan chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa document four years of judicial harassment of journalists through criminal defamation and insult laws, suspension of broadcasts and broadcast permissions, harassment and detention of members of the press, and the enactment of new laws that will further restrict media freedom. The three organizations recommend that Angola improve its press freedom record, including by freeing journalist Carlos Raimundo Alberto, who has been detained since 2023, desisting from imprisoning journalists for their work, as well as abolishing criminal defamation and repealing other laws that criminalize journalism.
The full UPR submission is available in English here.
This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.