Almost a month on from the police operation in Martim Moniz that so outraged left wing parties and immigrant associations, thousands of people have taken to the streets today in protest.
Reports describe “political activists, migrants and anonymous citizens” – but the photographs attest to the majority of those present.
This is an issue that has ground on, relentlessly, since the operation in Rua do Benformoso, in spite of attempts to ‘play the whole thing down’: SIC television news, for instance, carried a report to show that police operations of the same type “go back years”; the country’s Internal Security Observatory also said that it could see nothing illegal or wrong having taken place; the government, naturally, said this was a matter for the police, and that they too could only support it. But none of it has assuaged the left, immigrant associations and activists.
Slogans today included those attributed to ‘activists of the Left Bloc’, who chanted: “Fascists, fascists, your time has come, the immigrants stay and you go away”.
“The demonstration surprised many”, the state news agency continued – referring possibly to the numbers involved, which it put at 15,000 (SIC Notícias’ evening news increased this number to 50,000). But it will also have surprised for the extraordinary wealth of diversity in the capital.
Lusa’s reports describes Amina, a Syrian immigrant, at the front of the demonstration, who has lived in Portugal for three years and says “she has never experienced discrimination, unlike in the UK, where she lived.
“You really feel the racism there. I have never felt it here. But I live in Lisbon, I am white and I am educated,” she added.
According to lawyer Ricardo Sá Fernandes, also among the demonstrators:“The Portuguese are sending a signal here that they do not agree with any discrimination. We are all together,” he said, considering that political polarisation was not evident this afternoon, in spite of the fact that members of far-right groups were holding a counter action nearby, in support of the country’s police forces.
Lusa’s report certainly was focused on the views of protestors, a number of whom were concerned about what they see as “a shift to the right in Portugal” and as such, a shift away from traditional values of tolerance.
That said, the demo managed to attract ‘15,000’/ 50,000 (depending on which news report one reads), while the action in support of police, organised by the right, didn’t manage anything even close to that number.
With police on heightened alert in order to ensure order was kept at all times, perhaps the most telling detail about this afternoon came from the president of Santa Maria Maior parish council Miguel Coelho, who has always labelled the police action on December 19 as unacceptable, but who declined to take part in today’s demo, because he believes it was “sponsored by many populist radicals, left-wing Wokists”, who, he feared, would try to turn the event “into an attack on the police, particularly the PSP. And I can’t agree with that”.
Writing over Facebook, Coelho stressed that his parish needs more policing; there is too much crime, but crime “cuts across all races, ethnicities, creeds and social groups. It’s not an immigration problem”.
In short, Portugal needs “a prestigious PSP, which defends the Constitution, is close to the citizens, has authority and is better protected legally from the insults, threats and attacks that are made against its officers on a daily basis”.
Put another way, the country does not need 15,000 people (or even 50,000) marching through the streets vilifying police, who, as Coelho adds, need to be better paid as well.
MNA/