Lawyer asks the Attorney General of the Republic for three measures: the extinction of Chega, the immediate removal of posters considered discriminatory and the opening of a criminal investigation for discrimination and incitement to hatred.
The university professor and lawyer António Garcia Pereira presented, this Wednesday, a formal complaint to the Attorney General of the Republic, Amadeu Guerra, asking the Public Ministry to activate legal mechanisms to extinguish the Chega partyled by André Ventura.
The decision comes in the context of a long trajectory of public statements and actions cited by the former PCTP/MRPP, which he says constitute serious violations of the Constitution and the Law on Political Parties, according to .
“At the level of legal struggle, without legalist illusions”, it is possible to “demonstrate the complete illegality and unconstitutionality of a neo-fascist party like Chega, by André Ventura, and fight to put an end to his arrogant and violent impunity”, said the lawyer to .
For Garcia Pereira, the fight against fascism is not limited to the street or public protest. It is also a legal fight, and that is why the lawyer invokes the Constitution, which “does not allow racist organizations or those that support fascist ideology”. The complainant also cites a 2003 law that determines that “the Constitutional Court decrees, at the request of the Public Ministry, the extinction of political parties” with this profile.
The lawyer asks Amadeu Guerra three concrete measures: the extinction of Chega, the immediate removal of campaign posters considered discriminatory and the opening of a criminal investigation for discrimination and incitement to hatred, under the terms of the Penal Code.
Concrete examples that had consequences
Garcia Pereira expresses surprise at the fact that the Public Ministry has not yet acted in the face of certain public situations. It points out concrete examples of party leaders – including André Ventura, Pedro Pinto, Rita Matias and Pedro Frazão – who, through the media and social networks, defamed groups of people based on race, color, ethnic or religious origin, inciting discrimination and violence.
Among the cases cited are recent ones from Chega’s campaign with phrases such as “This is not Bangladesh” e “Gypsies must obey the law”phrases that Chega members and leader also spread on social media, as well as statements by Ventura defending the need for “” in Portugal — a clear indication of support for the “fascist dictatorship regime”, warns Garcia Pereira.
The lawyer also denounces “the trivialization of insults and hate speech, including in parliamentincluding references by Ventura to journalists as “enemies of the people”, and the propagation of false increases in crime attributed to immigrants, Muslims and gypsies, which goes against official data from the Judiciary Police.
Among other examples, remember Pedro Pinto’s comments on the death of Odair Monizwith the Chega deputy suggesting the use of lethal force by the police, something that Ventura publicly corroborated. Remember that the leader of the party’s parliamentary group said that “”.
According to Garcia Pereira, these behaviors had direct consequences for the targeted communities, generating fear and embarrassment in everyday activities as simple as “going out to the street and going to the cafe, the children’s school or the supermarket”, which justifies the judicial intervention.
