Weights and measures

January 27, 2025. The Judicial Police arrested a man suspected of raping a woman in the room of a boarding house on Rua do Benformoso, in Martim Moniz. He was a 61-year-old foreign citizen and the victim was a 24-year-old girl with cognitive impairment, who had been absent from the care institution where she was being treated and was sleeping on the street. Any reactions to violence against women? None.

6 May 2025. A PSP officer was attacked by a foreign citizen with a utility knife at the AIMA premises in Martim Moniz. Luís Montenegro, Prime Minister, condemned the act of violence and wished the police officer a “speedy and full recovery”.

June 5, 2025. 30-year-old man injured after being stabbed in the neck and back on Rua do Poço do Borratem, in Martim Moniz. There was no reaction.

June 10, 2025. Five FC Porto fans were attacked by a group of men, presumably Sporting fans. The Porto fans were travelling in a car that was attacked with torches, four of them were injured and the vehicle ended up completely burned. The presidents of both clubs reacted. The political authorities? Nothing.

June 10, 2025. On the same day, three actors from 'A Barraca' were attacked outside the theater in Santos, Lisbon, after being insulted, while leaflets were thrown that read "Remigration. Portugal for the Portuguese. Defend your blood." Margarida Balseiro Lopes, Minister of Culture, condemned the attack, which she called an "attack on freedom of expression, on the right to creativity, on democratic values." Alexandra Leitão, Socialist candidate for the Lisbon City Council, considered the attack "shocking," which resulted in the hospitalization of one of the attacked actors. José Luís Carneiro, candidate for the leadership of the PS, condemned the act of violence, which he classified as “incitement to hatred and violence”, asking the Government to provide information and clarification on “what is happening and the steps being taken by the competent authorities”. Rui Tavares, Mariana Mortágua and António Filipe, from Livre, BE and PCP respectively, also spoke out : Tavares called for the “strongest condemnation”, Mortágua and Filipe recalled the fact that data on far-right organisations had been removed from the Annual Internal Security Report. All the other parties, if I am not mistaken, expressed their condemnation of the violence perpetrated in A Barraca by far-right movements. The press, meanwhile, questioned the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Paulo Rangel, about the fact that the Prime Minister had not spoken out on this episode; and the MNE clarified, saying that the case deserves “exemplary prosecution and punishment”, dismissing the need for Montenegro to speak out, when the Minister of Culture had already done so. Endless hours of commentary and analysis filled the news channels’ schedules about this case.

June 11, 2025. In a camp in Amareleja, Sancho Cardas shot his son António dead because he opposed gypsy tradition, trying to defend a 14-year-old sister who was being forced to marry. Cardas is on the run and is considered dangerous by the authorities. No political leader has spoken out about a case involving children's and women's rights.

There can be no doubt about two facts. The first is this: all these cases of violence are repugnant, their perpetrators deserve moral contempt and the State must have the appropriate mechanisms of Law and Justice to respond to them, investigating and, where appropriate, punishing those who committed them in an exemplary manner. The second is this: regardless of the mechanisms of the Rule of Law (which deserve a separate discussion), no democracy can survive morally and ethically when, in the space of a few days, some crimes receive media coverage and reactions from the political power, and others do not. Or when the political power decides to react based on the media coverage given to certain crimes, or based on the electoral weight of the professional class to which the victim belongs. Why do all political agents speak out in the face of an episode carried out by an extreme right-wing group and at the same time remain silent in the face of a murder carried out by a Portuguese man of gypsy ethnicity who, in addition to having murdered his son, wanted to force his underage daughter to marry against her will? Why is it that (yet another) case of violence between sports fans is completely ignored by the political powers, but when it involves a PSP officer, even the Prime Minister feels the need to come out publicly and condemn the violence? Why is the Amareleja episode restricted to the pages of Correio da Manhã? Does the gypsy girl not have enough dignity or are those who wish to demonstrate their moral superiority, always so zealous about women's rights, hesitant about which side to take in this specific case? Is it really so difficult to say that no act of violence, except in cases where it is not illegal (such as self-defence, for example), is acceptable, and that all acts deserve condemnation and that the authorities must do their job? No, it is not. Except in a society that lives more from displaying its moral superiority, its political agendas and its cowardice than from the coherence and integrity of its values.

PS: The speeches of June 10th were, above all, melancholic and nostalgic for the last 50 years. Ramalho Eanes' award, which was very just, ended up seeming to symbolise, sadly, the end of a cycle that Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa seems not to ignore. Lídia Jorge and the President of the Republic, with various reasons here and there, revealed that, representing the same old thing , they do not know how to combat what they intend to destroy or fight for what they understand as fair and essential. What seems to be left for this situationism is to build up benches of moral superiority, wave their kindness and wait for another situation to arrive to replace it.

Note: text written on June 12th.