Angolan Editor, Francisco Rasgado facing prison, $1.5 million damages in criminal defamation case By Committee To Protect Journalists (CPJ) LISTEN 7 HOURS AGO New York, April 30, 2021 – Angolan authorities should drop the criminal defamation and insult charges against editor Francisco Rasgado and reform the country's laws to decriminalize journalism, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. On April 23, police officers arrested Rasgado, the founder and director of the privately-owned newspaper Chela Press, at his home in the southern city of Benguela for his alleged failure to appear in court in connection to a criminal defamation and insult complaint by Rui Falcão, the secretary of information for the ruling People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) party, according to media reports and the journalist and his lawyer, José Faria, both of whom spoke to CPJ in phone interviews.