Decorated urge President to recognize Palestine

A group of 64 members decorated with the Order of Freedom, including Vasco Lourenço and Pacheco Pereira, urged this Monday the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, to support Portugal's recognition of the State of Palestine.

In a statement, the group of recipients of the distinction attributed to figures who stood out for their actions in favor of freedom, demands that the President “take an unequivocal position of condemnation of the policy of the State of Israel in relation to Palestine and support for the immediate recognition by Portugal of the State of Palestine”.

In the note sent to the Lusa news agency with the title “WE CANNOT REMAIN SILENT”, signed by figures such as the April military man Vasco Lourenço, president of the board of the 25th of April Association, and by the former journalist, José Rebelo, the group condemns “the military and police operations carried out in Gaza and the West Bank by the Israeli authorities, causing widespread destruction of the territory, thousands of deaths, injuries and political prisoners”.

Among the 64 signatories are also the historians Fernando Rosas and José Pacheco Pereira, the journalist Diana Andringa, the doctor Isabel do Carmo, the former Minister of Culture José António Pinto Ribeiro, the director of the Jornal de Letras, José Carlos Vasconcelos, the researcher and military man of Abril Pedro Pezarat Correia, who commanded the former Southern Military Region, and the former Ministers of Justice Alberto Martins and Vera Jardim.

“The genocide of the Palestinian people, which we are witnessing daily, with the indifference or even complicity of many governments of countries that claim to defend Human Rights, obliges us to publicly reaffirm the values ​​for which we fought and which we continue to defend, in terms of absolute repudiation of the criminal actions that have been carried out by the State of Israel and its leaders,” the statement added.

Researcher Alfredo Caldeira, professor Ana Prata, from the Faculty of Law of the New University of Lisbon, April military officers António Rosado da Luz, Aprígio Ramalho, Carlos Albino, José Duarte Mendes and José Manuel da Costa Neves, researcher Maria Clara de Barros Queiroz, professor at the University of Lisbon and Army colonel Manuel Pedroso Marques, former president of the Lusa news agency, who participated in a military and civil action against the dictatorship in 1961, are other signatories.

The group stresses that, as recipients of the distinction that praises “relevant services provided to the cause of democracy and freedom” and also defined as “relevant services provided in defense of the values ​​of Civilization, in favor of the dignity of the Human Person and the cause of Freedom”, they feel that this distinction “strengthens the spirit” and “increases responsibilities” to insist on a position on the part of the President of the Republic.

Among the signatories are also Maria João Gerardo, Mario Cabrita, Mario Simões Teles, Mario Tomé, Nuno Santos Silva, Orlando Carvalho Abreu, Pedro Lauret, Ramiro Soares Rodrigues, Rodrigo Pizarro, Sara Amâncio and Agostinho Vidal de Pinho.