Angola: TikToker Jailed For Criticizing The President

Neth Nahara, 31, is known as a digital influencer who uses her social media to comment on current issues in Angola, mainly involving famous artists and politicians. Singer and mother of two small children, on social media, where she has thousands of followers, she is also known for her controversial and polemic positions and for sharing details of her personal life, such as her state of health and other day-to-day challenges. 

In the days leading up to the recording of her livestream on Tiktok, on 12 August 2023, where she criticized the president of the republic, Neth Nahara had denounced, on her social media accounts, the police’s attempt to seize her building materials, without a warrant, on one of her plots of land.

In Angola, in recent years, the free exercise of the right to freedom of expression has been under attack. Criticizing the President of the Republic is now a criminal offence. In October 2022, Kuduro singer Gilson Morreira  (also known as Tanaice Neutro) was also sentenced to 15 months imprisonment for the crime of ‘Outrage against the State, its symbols and bodies’ after calling the President of the Republic a clown in one of his videos posted on Facebook.