The family of former Angolan rebel fighter, Jonas Savimbi, is seeking up to one million Euros in dmagesfor his portrayal as a ‘barbarian’ in Call of Duty: Black Ops II.
Activision, the video game publisher is being sued by the family of Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi, who have objected to the way he was portrayed in the game Call of Duty: Black Ops II.
According to report in the Guardian, Three of Savimbi’s children, who are now based in France, contend that the game depicted their father – the founder and leader of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita) – as a “barbarian”. They are seeking €1m in damages from the French branch of Activision Blizzard.
Savimbi is notorious for leading a decades-long guerrilla warfare against the Angolan government and its dominant party, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). He was killed in battle against government forces in 2002.
The family’s lawyer Carole Enfert said Savimbi is represented as a “big halfwit who wants to kill everybody”. The lawsuit will argue that he was in fact a “political leader and strategist”.
France has extremely strict laws on both defamation and a person’s rights of publicity – in other words, the right to control the commercial use of their likeness. “In cases such as this, where a well-known person is either depicted or has provided inspiration for a character, it is not surprising that someone aggrieved by it is able to formulate the basis of a legal argument,” said Alex Tutty of law firm Sheridans, which specialises in the entertainment and media fields.
“A claim for defamation of a dead person is notoriously difficult and can be impossible depending on the territory. France does have laws that permit a defamation action in the case where the alleged defamation affects the deceased person’s relatives in that it causes them suffering or reflect upon their reputation.”
According to a lawyer for Activision Blizzard, Etienne Kowalski, they rejected the claim, stating that the game represents Savimbi as a “good guy” – and that he is portrayed fairly, “for who he was … a character of Angolan history, a guerrilla chief who fought the MPLA”.
