Journalist detained

A journalist charged with defaming Angolan President Eduardo dos Santos was detained by police at the weekend and was being held incommunicado, the Media Institute of Southern Africa reported on Monday. In a statement expressing concern at the action, it said Rafael Marques, who is also the coordinator of the Angolan office of the Open Society Initiative in Southern Africa, was arrested at dawn at his home on Saturday by officers of the Department of National Criminal Investigations (DNIC). “Marques was being held at Luanda’s Labortório prison. According to information received from Human Rights Watch, Marques has been refused access to his lawyer and has gone on hunger strike in protest. By this morning (October 18) Marques’ lawyer had still been able to gain access to him,” it said. “Marques was charged on October 14 with defaming President dos Santos, for allegedly having referred to him as a dictator in a July 3, 1999 article published in ‘Folha 8’.” Two weeks ago, the newspaper’s publisher and editor, William Tonet, was also briefly detained by police.