A/HRC/7/10/Add.4 page 12 not to attend mass. Security forces were reported to have beaten and arrested a number of persons in the cathedral. 29. Police officers arrested and detained Voice of America correspondent Fernando Lelo on 14 May 2006, as he photographed police officers beating members of a Catholic congregation attending the special reconciliation mass in the cathedral in Cabinda city. He was taken to the Provincial Directorate of Criminal Investigation (Direcção Provincial de Investigação Criminal, DPIC) where he had his camera and tape recorder confiscated and he was reportedly beaten. He was later released without charge. Mr. Lelo was again arrested at his place of work, whilst no longer a Voice of America correspondent, on 15 November 2007 in Cabinda by the military police and was transferred to Luanda where he has been held in military detention apparently accused of inciting rebellion. Concerns have been expressed about the possible connection between both arrests as well as about the fact that Mr. Lelo was not compensated by the authorities for having been arrested and assaulted by the police in May 2006. 30. In July 2006, the Provincial Court banned Mpalabanda (Associação Cívica de Cabinda), one of the few human rights organizations operating in Cabinda, stating it had illegal political aims and had fostered disobedience – including protests against the new Bishop of Cabinda – and violence. It was reported that during the previous month a number of human rights activists were arrested outside the Sé Cathedral, during an investiture ceremony for the new Bishop. The Provincial Government reportedly demanded on 11 June 2006 as a condition for the release of the President of Mpalabanda, a signed document in which he committed the organization not to use the Church as a sanctuary for meetings of Mpalabanda. 31. About twenty persons associated with the Noah’s Ark Movement and loyal to the suspended priests were reportedly arrested and detained for openly opposing the nomination of Bishop Dias. A first wave of arrests between July 2005 and January 2006 reportedly resulted in seven persons being arrested and detained. A second wave of arrests and detentions occurred between 17 and 19 October 2006 and further individuals were arrested at other times. Angry crowds gathered at the bishop’s palace in protest against the above detentions in October 2006 and against the suspension of the seven priests. In chapels where members of the Movement gathered there was a police presence. On 15 October 2006, security forces surrounded Santiago chapel. Furthermore, individuals have also been put under house arrest for a number of hours when the President of Angola traveled to Cabinda, most recently in August 2007. In May 2007, protests in Cabinda against the Catholic bishop, promoted mainly by the Noah’s Ark movement and the Apostolic Movements, continued to fuel the conflict within the church. The bishop accused these movements of violently preventing the faithful from attending masses and threatening bloodshed. Police intervened on 14 and 21 May 2007 against protesters at the Imaculada Conceição parish, where pro-independence priest Jorge Casimiro Congo had been serving. 11 On 7 May 2007, a parish priest and the 11 Mpalabanda, accused the General Vicar of prohibiting a mass on 21 May 2007 in the said parish and of calling in the police. Also using the expression of “ruandization of Cabinda”, Mpalabanda provoked an angry reaction of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference