Miguel A. Lopes / Lusa
“No, I was not wrong. It’s really a list of a Portuguese school” – but after all, Rita Matias wasn’t sure. Arrive has already admitted that it has not confirmed the list of foreign names of children. There are very outraged parents.
The goal was to denounce an alleged “cultural and civilizational change” in Portugal, but it arrives – that through André Ventura and Rita Matias the names of several children, many of foreign origin, allegedly students from a Portuguese school – did not confirm the truth of this list.
The confession came from the young deputy herself Rita Matias to the radio, this Monday.
“The arrival received the list. Did not make a major confirmation, we did not see which school was ”said Rita Matias on the program. “By the way, I was surprised to realize that the extreme left is that it was the work of going to see the school, to publicize the video ‘N’ times. If they had not done so much, the video went absolutely normal, as so many videos we publish daily.”
The same afternoon, the same. Party members do not even know which school correspond to the names they cited.
Before Ventura read the names in Parliament on Friday, Rita Matias had shared one on Instagram reading the same list, claiming to be “a Portuguese school” and questioning how many Portuguese families would have difficulty finding a place for their children.
“No, I was not wrong. It’s really a list of a Portuguese school. How many people here could not get a place for their children? ”Asks the deputy in the video.
A day later, André Ventura repeated the gesture in Parliament, omitting, in turn, the children’s nicknames to avoid direct identification.
Rita Cid Matias: name of Muslim origin
The move of the arrival provoked, as usual, strong opposition of the parliamentary left.
Mariana Mortágua, from the Left Block, recalled that the arrival had a deputy named Brazilian origin, Marcus Vinicius; The deputy of free Paulo Muacho admitted that the party is considering submitting a complaint against André Ventura and Rita Matias. And PS Isabel Moreira stressed that many Portuguese have foreign nicknames, including Rita Matias herself, whose nickname “Cid”It has Islamic origin.
“Cid is Portuguese and has no allusion to the Muslim community,” defended the ally of André Ventura, who asked for “respect” for his family.
But in fact, according to the dictionary, the nickname Cid comes from Arabic, Sidwhich means ‘Lord’.
Aguiar-Branco defends “freedom of expression”
Member of the previous PSD government, Pedro Duarte He also criticized André Ventura’s “lack of empathy”, who shocked him.
Other social democrats, such as the President of the Assembly of the Republic, José Pedro Aguiar-Brancocame out in defense of the arrival and socialist Marcos Perestrello, who chaired the part of the plenary on Friday in Parliament and that “there was no violation of children’s rights” in the intervention of the arrival of the arrival.
“Who makes interventions-I speak to the full exercise of freedom of expression-is that they have to take responsibility for what they say. I can like it or not, to be in agreement or not, I can even do a critical exercise and contradict who says it. It is to say ‘can not’,” he has constantly marked a position of non-consent of the interventions of the arrival.
Parents and indignant EE
Several parental associations and schools in downtown Lisbon have released an open letter to express their “firm repudiation”Given the statements of the arrival.
The initiative – “Open letter of repudiation of xenophobic statements and undue exposure of minors” – came from the Parents Association of Architect Victor Palla Elementary School and already has the support of other public school associations in Lisbon, advances the document directed to entities, including the President of the Republic, the President of the Assembly of the Republic and the Lisbon City Council.
At the same points, parents and education in charge denounce the dissemination of the names of minors as an act of “extreme gravity”, which violates the right to privacy and exposes children to hatred and discrimination.
The political instrumentalization of minors is “unacceptable and dangerous”, say the associations, which underline that they have considered formal complaints to the National Commission for Data Protection and the Protection Committees of Children and Youth.
The document also disputes the insinuations of favoritism in the enrollment process and, in a third point, warns of the scarcity of vacancies in the public pre-school education network.
Tomás Guimarães, Zap //
