Angolan TikToker Ana da Silva Miguel, known on social media as Neth Nahara, has been sentenced to 2 years in prison for criticizing the African nation’s president João Lourenço, on TikTok.
The popular social media influencer who was asking justice to be tempered with mercy had her plea fall on deaf ears as her sentence was upheld and was going to be carried out.
Nahara was sentenced to serve a six-month jail; term in August for her comment about the president but had the jail period reviewed after a court of appeal court concluded that the initial sentence was too lenient prompting the increase. According to the appeals court Neth Nahara’s offensive words against the president, in view of her influence, were unacceptable.
Despite asking to be forgiven for her actions being a first-time offender and also a mother, Nahara was asked to pay a fine of $1,200 to the president for bringing his name into disrepute and told the sentence could not be appealed.
BBC.com reported that Nahara ‘insulted’ the president on her TikTok account accusing him of “anarchy and disorganization.”
Related stories
The popular TikToker is said to have also blamed President João Lourenço for the African nation’s under-development citing issues like the lack of schools, inadequate housing, and high levels of unemployment in the country.
President Lourenço started serving his second term in August 2022, after being re-elected on the ticket of the MPLA party. The party, having faced many accusations including leading a repressive regime, has been in power since Angola’s independence in 1975.
Neth Nahara has some 230,000 TikTok followers and thousands of views on her videos and now holds the record of being the first person in Angola to be convicted for content posted on TikTok.