Free Amadeu Oliveira: Request to UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention Examine This Case
The Issue
Dr. Amadeu Oliveira has been held at the Cadeia da Ribeirinha prison in Mindelo, São Vicente, since 18 July 2021. His defense team maintains that his detention is arbitrary under the standards applied by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.
He is a Cape Verdean defense lawyer. He won the release of Arlindo Teixeira and ten other citizens whom the Constitutional Court found had been held illegally. He criticized the courts publicly, on national television. In April 2021 the voters of São Vicente elected him to the National Assembly - effectively a "Congressman" of Cabo Verde.
Three months later he was in a cell. He remains within those prison walls 5 years later...
What the record shows
Dr. Amadeu Oliveira was arrested on 18 July 2021 on a warrant dated 16 July. The parliamentary resolution invoked to authorize his detention was published in the official gazette on 19 July, one day after his arrest.
That authorization was adopted by the Permanent Commission, a standing committee of nine members, in a parliament of seventy-two seats. His defense team maintains it never covered preventive detention.
The Court of Appeal of Barlavento established 145 findings of fact. The Supreme Court ruling confirming his seven-year sentence, Acórdão 137/STJ/2023, omitted 24 of them. The court acknowledged the omission in writing in November 2023 and attributed it to a mechanical error during printing. The defense states the missing findings were the ones supporting acquittal. No correction has ever been issued.
His bank accounts have been frozen since July 2022.
On 10 August 2026, following a public petition signed by roughly 450 citizens and led by the novelist and lawyer Germano Almeida, the lawyer Maria João Novais, and Commander Silvino da Luz, President José Maria Neves asked the Constitutional Court to rule on whether that 2021 authorization ever permitted preventive detention at all.
Why this is a human rights question
Under international law, a detention can follow every letter of a country's own law and still be arbitrary. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention applies five tests, and a detention needs to fail only one. Cabo Verde is a stable democracy and a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. That is exactly why these standards exist.
The full documented record, with the court rulings themselves, is at amadeu.cv.
Five years ago, almost no one outside Cabo Verde knew this case existed. In July 2026, roughly 450 citizens signed their names to it, and in August the President of the Republic took it to the Constitutional Court. Cases like this do not end because the facts are strong enough. They end when enough people refuse to look away.
We call on the authorities of Cabo Verde to:
1. Release Amadeu Oliveira immediately, or replace detention with non-custodial measures while the Constitutional Court decides.
2. Correct or annul Acórdão 137/STJ/2023, which the defense maintains has no legal force while 24 findings of fact remain missing.
3. Unfreeze his accounts and restore the means of his defense.
4. Invite the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers to review this case.
Sign, then send this to one other person. Amadeu's voice may be suppressed, but our voices joined together cannot be ignored.
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The Issue
Dr. Amadeu Oliveira has been held at the Cadeia da Ribeirinha prison in Mindelo, São Vicente, since 18 July 2021. His defense team maintains that his detention is arbitrary under the standards applied by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.
He is a Cape Verdean defense lawyer. He won the release of Arlindo Teixeira and ten other citizens whom the Constitutional Court found had been held illegally. He criticized the courts publicly, on national television. In April 2021 the voters of São Vicente elected him to the National Assembly - effectively a "Congressman" of Cabo Verde.
Three months later he was in a cell. He remains within those prison walls 5 years later...
What the record shows
Dr. Amadeu Oliveira was arrested on 18 July 2021 on a warrant dated 16 July. The parliamentary resolution invoked to authorize his detention was published in the official gazette on 19 July, one day after his arrest.
That authorization was adopted by the Permanent Commission, a standing committee of nine members, in a parliament of seventy-two seats. His defense team maintains it never covered preventive detention.
The Court of Appeal of Barlavento established 145 findings of fact. The Supreme Court ruling confirming his seven-year sentence, Acórdão 137/STJ/2023, omitted 24 of them. The court acknowledged the omission in writing in November 2023 and attributed it to a mechanical error during printing. The defense states the missing findings were the ones supporting acquittal. No correction has ever been issued.
His bank accounts have been frozen since July 2022.
On 10 August 2026, following a public petition signed by roughly 450 citizens and led by the novelist and lawyer Germano Almeida, the lawyer Maria João Novais, and Commander Silvino da Luz, President José Maria Neves asked the Constitutional Court to rule on whether that 2021 authorization ever permitted preventive detention at all.
Why this is a human rights question
Under international law, a detention can follow every letter of a country's own law and still be arbitrary. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention applies five tests, and a detention needs to fail only one. Cabo Verde is a stable democracy and a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. That is exactly why these standards exist.
The full documented record, with the court rulings themselves, is at amadeu.cv.
Five years ago, almost no one outside Cabo Verde knew this case existed. In July 2026, roughly 450 citizens signed their names to it, and in August the President of the Republic took it to the Constitutional Court. Cases like this do not end because the facts are strong enough. They end when enough people refuse to look away.
We call on the authorities of Cabo Verde to:
1. Release Amadeu Oliveira immediately, or replace detention with non-custodial measures while the Constitutional Court decides.
2. Correct or annul Acórdão 137/STJ/2023, which the defense maintains has no legal force while 24 findings of fact remain missing.
3. Unfreeze his accounts and restore the means of his defense.
4. Invite the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers to review this case.
Sign, then send this to one other person. Amadeu's voice may be suppressed, but our voices joined together cannot be ignored.
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Petition created on August 15, 2026