It is not every day that people are accused of planning a coup simply for talking about democracy. Last June, this fate befell 15 political and human rights activists in Angola when they were arrested for organizing a discussion in a bookstore in the capital, Luanda.

The book reading of Gene Sharp’s essay on nonviolent resistance From Dictatorship to Democracy earned the activists charges ranging from preparing a coup d’état to an assassination attempt on the president, José Eduardo dos Santos.