Livre’s co-spokesperson Rui Tavares accused the right this Saturday of not liking freedom and of having dropped its mask with the approval of serious laws for “fundamental freedoms” such as projects on gender identity.
“These are projects that are serious for fundamental freedoms,” said Rui Tavares, reacting to the approval, on Friday, of bills from PSD, Chega and CDS-PP on gender identity.
“It’s a right that is now ripping off its mask” and that, after “talking about freedom all these years, shows that, “after all, it doesn’t like freedom”, he said, considering that, in relation to these bills, the right-wing parties “once again are deceiving people”, saying “that these are operations on children and an absolutely exaggerated law that Portugal had”.
Rui Tavares was speaking to the Lusa agency in Caldas da Rainha (Leiria district), on the sidelines of the debate “A House to Create: a conversation about the future of the pavilions in Parque D. Carlos I”, organized by Livre’s local coordination nucleus.
In the opinion of the party’s co-spokesperson, “Portugal had one of the most moderate laws in Europe in relation to these topics” and now it has “a radical law, because where other countries allowed it from the age of 14 only with parental consent, in Portugal it was from the age of 16 with parental consent and medical information [para alterações no registo civil]”.
The bills on gender identity now generally approved (which follows the discussion in the specialty) provide for the mandatory medical validation for changing name and gender in the civil registry, which, for Livre, “limits rights that years ago had already been achieved by adults”.
For Rui Tavares, the idea that the country has “a right that, in fact, does not like freedom was very clear” at the end of the vote in the Assembly of the Republic: “They used all types of regimental devices – I must say, regrettably, with great inability on the part of the president of the Assembly of the Republic – to prevent the opposition parties from making a declaration of vote.”
“The mask is falling more and more and it will still take some time for people to see that the use that the right made of freedom, during these years, was an absolutely cynical use”, lamented Rui Tavares.
The debate brought together around 30 people at the Caldas da Rainha Cultural and Congress Center, where Rui Tavares defended that in the centuries-old pavilions, where the construction of a five-star hotel is planned, “a palace of culture” be created, with the space housing associations, cultural activities and artists’ residences, among other activities.
