Luaty Beirão is one of the most mediated opponents of the Angolan government of José Eduardo dos Santos, but he does not go to the Large Auditorium of the Loulé Secondary School, on January 19, at 10:30 am, “to talk about politics”. The topic of your conversation will be human rights and the rapper Luso-Angolan will be accompanied by José Marcos Mavungo, another opponent of power in Angola.
Together, they want to “awaken in students this concern” for a topic “that cuts across all disciplines”.
This session arises from the fact that Loulé Secondary School has an Amnesty International Student Group. In fact, south of the Tagus, this is the only non-university teaching establishment that has a section of that association that, at an international level, is concerned with human rights.
In statements to the Sul Informação, Anabela Correia, teacher and responsible for this Group of Students, explained that the trip to Loulé of the two activists arose "from Amnesty's activity plan, which foresaw making available the presence of Luaty Beirão and Marcus Mavungo for a session."
Thus, "we welcome the proposal and we will have the two of them here to give a lecture on their particular cases," he added. One of the points to be addressed will be that of freedom of expression: “no one likes to see anyone arrested for lack of freedom of expression. We also had a dictatorship in Portugal and we went through the same. It's a very interesting topic», considered the teacher.
After information was released about the presence of the two Angolan activists at the Loulé school, so far, there are already «280 students enrolled», revealed Anabela Correia. "I never thought that this aroused so much interest," he confesses. Luaty Beirão's media coverage, which was in the news for weeks, in Portugal and around the world, due to the hunger strike he carried out when he was unfairly detained by the Angolan government, "also contributes" to this interest among students in Loulé.
In June 2015, Luaty Beirão, who, as rapper, uses the name Ikonoklasta, was arrested for reading, in Luanda, with other activists, the book «Tools to destroy the dictator and prevent a new dictatorship», by journalist Domingos da Cruz. In protest against his arbitrary detention, and after months in prison, the musician went on a 36-day hunger strike, from 22 September to 27 October.
Luaty was eventually sentenced to five years and six months in jail, but at the end of June he was released, as were the remaining 16 activists.
The Portuguese-Angolan activist recently launched the book «I am more free, then». In an interview with the Observer newspaper, Luaty Beirão acknowledged that «deeply, José Eduardo dos Santos wrote this book».
Mavungo was, in turn, sentenced, in September 2015, to six years in prison for a crime of rebellion against the State, for being one of the signatories of a demonstration against «human rights violations and bad governance in Cabinda ».
According to the newspaper «Angola Network», this activist was released on May 20, 2016.
In addition to this lecture with Angolan opponents, Escola Secundária de Loulé has other ongoing activities, such as the initiative «Card Marathon», which asks "students, teachers and staff" to sign and send letters to various governments calling for the resolution of human rights cases that Amnesty International has highlighted around the world.
Currently, the cases of letters "to be signed" are, for example, that of Edward Snowden or that of Anni Alfred, an albino child from Malawi, an African country where it is believed that the bones of albino people have magical power and should be sold, a belief that endangers the lives of this and other children.
Listen and see here the music of Luaty Beirão, aka Ikonoklasta:
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