On the last 21st the Portuguese Judicial Police arrested six members of the Armilar Lusitano movement, a neo -Nazi militia
João Gabriel de Lima
Lisbon, Portugal (Folhapress) – The growth of hate crimes already draws attention in the European level. A report from ECRI, an acronym in English for the European Commission against racism and intolerance, recorded “a sharp increase in hate speech, which aims above all migrants, gypsies, the LGBTQIA+ and black people”.
The survey, made every five years, found that judicial complaints against hatred crimes (including offenses, incitement to violence and violence itself) practically quintupulum in Portugal – from 63 in 2019 to 347 in 2024, according to data provided by the Portuguese police.
The report made public in a week when the theme was news in Portugal. On the last day 21, the Portuguese Judicial Police arrested six members of the Armilar Lusitano movement, a neo -Nazi militia. In the context of “Operation 3D Disarm” were seized explosives, detonators, knives and firearms created with 3D printers – these latter inspired the name of the operation.
“We had information that justified the police action, but it was still surprising the size of the weaponry we found,” said Manuela Santos, coordinator of the Portuguese Judicial Police Counterterrorism Unit, in a press conference on the operation.
According to Santos, the Lusitano Armillary Movement had been monitored since 2021, when the boycott was preached to the measures against the pandemic. At the press conference, the coordinator of the investigation said that the militia was set up from several extreme right structures that already existed, such as the new social order movements and 1143 – the last led by Mario Machado, the most notorious neo -Nazi in Portugal, currently in jail. “There were even face -to -face meetings that we follow, with elements from various parts of the country,” said Santos.
According to the NOW news channel, the Lusitano Armilar Movement planned an attack on the Assembly of the Republic, the Portuguese Parliament. Santos did not confirm or denied the report, stating that the leakage of information would hinder the investigation. At the press conference, he said only that the group “was armory, recruiting people” and “tactical training capacity to do an action.”
Four of the six detainees were arrested preventively, including a member of the Public Security Police – the Portuguese equivalent of the Brazilian Military Police – whose name was not disclosed.
Sought by Folha, ECRI said that “it provides particular attention to groups that promote racism and intolerance,” and informs that the newly countered report “cites several cases of tender groups involving neo-Nazi groups, in particular against immigrants.”
ECRI does not refer to the European Commission or the European Council, instances of the European Union. It belongs to an older structure, the Council of Europe, founded in 1949 and focuses on the area of Human Rights.
The European Commission, however, has been concerned about the theme for some time. “Several international reports, including one of the United Nations, found an increase in hate speech during the pandemic,” says Rita Guedes, a researcher at the Lisbon Research and Social Intervention Center.
Guedes coordinates Knowhate, a comprehensive research on hate speech in Portugal funded by the European Commission. “My hypothesis, which comes from social psychology, is that in situations of high uncertainty or deprivation, such as pandemic, some people seek a culprit – and usually turn against stigmatized groups.”
Guedes coordinated research found similarities between hate discourse in Portugal and other European countries, especially in the field of racial discrimination.
“There are phenomena that appear connected, such as the dehumanization of the other, through comparisons with animals, and the frequent resource for misinformation – in many countries, for example, hate speech relates immigration to public security issues.” For the researcher, the fact that racism is not a crime in Portugal makes it difficult to combat those who perpetrate it.
Academic research and police investigations find an exchange involving this type of crime in different places in Europe.
On June 10, the Portuguese actor Adérito Lopes was beaten at the door of a theater in Lisbon. The main suspects, according to police, belong to extremist groups. One of them, “Blood and Honor”, “Blood and Honor”, is the Portuguese branch of a neo -Nazi international movement whose name evokes the hytlenist youth slogan. The group was included in Portugal’s annual internal security report (RASI) in 2024 as a “serious threat”, and then removed – not to disturb ongoing investigations.
The connection between neo -Nazi groups from various parts of Europe may require international police cooperation – as the ECRI report underlines neo -Nazi is not an exclusively Portuguese phenomenon. Nor is it discarded that extremist militias are inspired by each other.
In 2022, German police arrested 25 members of the Reichsburger Group (“Citizens of the Empire”), who planned an attack on the German Parliament. Data contained in ECRI reports and research such as knowhate may be useful for feeding transnational investigations.
