Portuguese ultranationalist group, Reconquista.
The president of RECONQUISTA requested the Right of Response to our newspaper for the news “Group of 100 neo-Nazis rented and met in the Lisbon Municipal Assembly room” — which we transcribe below.
In accordance with the provisions of articles 24 to 26 of the Press Law, the founder of the Reconquista movement, Afonso Gonçalves, requested the Right of Reply to the news in ZAP on November 15, with the title “Group of 100 neo-Nazis rented and met in a room of the Lisbon Municipal Assembly”.
Following the request received, ZAP publishes the response sent by its author below:
In that piece, the pamphlet title cataloged us as “neonazis” — “Neonazis gathered at the headquarters of the Municipal Assembly”. This characterization is abusive and evidently defamatory: our movement is not neo-Nazi.
We claim our right to ideological self-determination, identifying ourselves as nationalists and traditionalists. The use of the term “neonazi” to the movement is unfounded, lacks any scientific validity and constitutes an attempt to distort our identity and principles.
Furthermore, it is not up to journalism to issue an opinion disguised as news.
According to the text of the same piece, reproducing statements by the President of the Lisbon Municipal Assembly (AML), Rosário Farmhouse, a proposal would have been presented by an “entity” that carried out the rental, being the “youth collective ( Chega party)”.
This is completely false, and more serious: slanderous. We never, at any time, passed ourselves off as Juventude Chega. Nor would there be any reason to do so, as we believe — or believed — in institutional normality.
We are fully aware that it is legal, legitimate and fully constitutional for movements with the most diverse ideological orientations to use public spaces, to which they also contribute through paying taxes to the State.
Observation of the CDJ’s first point would have prevented this slander from being published without contradiction.
It is also mentioned that “the prosecutor hid the fact that it was an extremist movement.
It was only discovered afterwards, when the event was already taking place, that the congress was after all a Nazi movement.” This is absolutely false and a ridiculous statement. The epithet “extremist” is given to us by you, and we don’t consider ourselves that way, so it didn’t make sense to describe ourselves that way.
Furthermore, at no time do we hide, in whole or in part, the nature, content or content of the event. On the contrary, confirmation was only given after sending an email that specified in detail the title of the event, the promoting organization, the complete list of speakers and their respective speeches.
It is easily proven that AML itself did not understand that we were from Juventude Chega, since the amount we were billed was five times greater than the amount that would have been charged if we were actually from Juventude Chega.
This is due to the fact that reduced values are provided for entities of public interest, such as political parties.
We repudiate the statement that the use of the space was only approved because it was understood that we were from Juventude Chega, as this suggestion implies that, if we were not from that youth, the event would have been denied based on ideological criteria.
This view contradicts the principle of democratic legality that should guide the conduct of any public entity, notably a local government body. In other words, the decision to allow or not to hold an event in a public space must be based on its legal compliance, and not on its ideological nature.”
Afonso Gonçalves – President RECONQUISTA
Editor’s Note:
1. ZAP had the opportunity to highlight, in the news in question, that “the group has already addressed the case, saying that the news about the meeting is false. He writes in”.
2. ZAP is grateful for the additional clarifications provided through the text of the Right of Reply regarding the contours and circumstances in which the episode reported by the newspaper Expresso, cited by our newspaper, occurred.
3. ZAP also had the opportunity to mention, in the news in question, that the event promoters “they say they are not neo-Nazis: Reconquista ‘is a nationalist and traditionalist organization; not neo-nazi’.
4. Regardless of how the movement presents itself or classifies itself, ZAP maintains the appropriateness of the use of the expressions “neonazi” and “extremist” that it used to characterize it.
5. This characterization is not an exercise of opinion. It is the factual result of the ideological positions publicly expressed by the movement — namely on its website, on its social networks and in the interviews it has given — that objectively place these positions in the ideological spectrum of the terms used.
