Lawyer António Garcia Pereira presented this Thursday, October 30th, a complaint addressed to the Attorney General of the Republic so that the Public Ministry activates legal mechanisms to extinguish Chega, considering that the party violates the Constitution.
In the complaint, reported by Expresso and consulted by Lusa, Garcia Pereira asks Amadeu Guerra to proceed with the appropriate procedure for the extinction of Chega.
It also requests the opening of a criminal investigation against the president of that party, André Ventura, and other leaders, for inciting hatredand the adoption of judicial and administrative measures for the urgent removal of posters with messages of “incitement to hatred and violence against groups of citizens”.
In argument, the lawyer recalls that the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic does not allow “racist organizations or those that support fascist ideology” and lists episodes of the conduct of Chega members that, he says, “represent the raising to an (even) higher level of systematic behavior in violation of those essential democratic principles”.
The lawyer and university professor, among other examples, remembers André Ventura’s recent words, when he argued that Portugal needs “three Salazars”, and the posters with messages referring to Bangladesh and the gypsy community.
Garcia Pereira also refers to the Chega leader’s publications on social media against gypsies, when he speaks of this community as “people who ‘think they have rights and privileges’ and who do not comply with the law”.
The author of the complaint also warns of a “trivialization of the most stupid insults and hate speeches” against “political opponents and certain communities”, recalling when Chega’s parliamentary leader, Pedro Pinto, defended, regarding the death of Odair Moniz, that “if the police shot to kill, the country was in order”.
António Garcia Pereira considers it clear that Ventura, as well as Rita Matias, Pedro Pinto or Pedro Frazão have “defamed groups of people because of their race, color, ethnic or geographic origin and religion, inciting and encouraging discrimination, hatred and even violence against such groups”.
“In fact, there is already several cases of complete and barbaric attacks on such citizens, found in the Algarve, Porto and Greater Lisbon, and causing everyone strong fear and embarrassment in their freedom of action (namely, going out to the street and going to the cafe, the children’s school or the supermarket), reads the complaint.
For Garcia Pereira, no concept of freedom of expression “can justify this type of conduct” and these behaviors are examples of “very serious and legally unacceptable violations, both of fundamental principles of the democratic Rule of Law and of the rights, freedoms and fundamental guarantees of the targeted citizens”.
The university professor considers that the Public Ministry “has the legitimacy and obligation to promote the criminal process to investigate and determine the facts”, recalling that it is up to this body “to carry out criminal action guided by the principle of legality and defend democratic legality”.
“Which have therefore been seriously, willfully, blatantly and repeatedly violated by the conduct of the Chega party and its aforementioned President and highest leader, André Ventura”, concludes the lawyer.
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