A young Angolan man, whose name has not yet been ascertained, was arrested by the Criminal Investigation Service (SIC) in Luanda for criticizing the President of the Republic of Angola, João Lourenço, in a video posted on the social network Tik Tok.
The SIC presented the young man this Wednesday, while work is underway to identify two other young men, who are also work colleagues on the construction site of the New Agostino Neto International Airport and appear in the same video.
According to DN, the young people talk about hunger in the country and call João Lourenço a "crook", as well as criticizing the fact that some of the workers at the construction site earn higher salaries than teachers.
The infrastructure in question began to be built around 25 years ago, and in 2017 the cost exceeded six billion dollars.
The SIC of Luanda, represented by the Director of the Office of Institutional Communication and Press, Manuel Halaiwa, considers the video of the young people to be insulting and offensive.
He explained that these were crimes of outrage against the State, defamation and slander against the President of the Republic and his symbols.
"This video has gone viral on social media and is damaging the image of the representative of state and his symbols," he stressed, reinforcing the SIC's appeal to young people to "use social media for positive purposes".
The crime of outraging the Angolan state, its symbols and organs is included in article 333 introduced in 2020 in the new Penal Code.
The controversial article raised criticism from various quarters of society, and at the time the Minister for Justice and Human Rights, Francisco Queiroz, assured that the aim was not to prevent criticism of the actions of the President of the Republic.
Paragraph 1 of this article states that "anyone who publicly, and with the intention of offending, outrages by words, images, writings, drawings or sounds, the Republic of Angola, the President of the Republic or any other sovereign body shall be punished with imprisonment from 6 months to 3 years or a fine of 60 to 360 days".