EGIDIO SANTOS / U.PORTO
Rector of the University of Porto, António de Sousa Pereira
“Physical threats, to me and my family,” says António de Sousa Pereira, who guarantees that he had Document forgery at the entrance of students without minimum medical grade. Diretor da FMUP fala em “lapso”.
The rector of the University of Porto denounced, this Tuesday, at the Commission of Education and Science in the Assembly of the Republic, which received “Physical threats”against themselves and against the family in the controversial case of 30 candidates for the medical course.
“There were not only pressures. There was Physical threats to me and my family, who will make me the sheet. Arrived at this level of mobster. I am not talking about the minister (of education). I never mentioned the minister. They constantly call the Rectory to say that they are people who know well who I am, who will destroy me, who will go to the family and who know very well where I live, ”said António de Sousa Pereira, during the hearing with urgent character this Tuesday.
António de Sousa Pereira stressed, however “There were no pressures from the Minister of Education.”
“If they ask me if there were pressures from the minister [da Educação]. Of course. We discussed the situation, we came to an understanding that we would ask for information from the General Inspection of Education and Science (IGEC). The Minister has scrupulously fulfilled (…), ”said the rector.
António de Sousa Pereira lamented, however, the “posture of Professor António Sarmento”, the first doctor to receive the Covid-19 vaccine in Portugal, for creating expectations to 30 candidates for the medical school, when giving an interview to the newspaper Nascer do Sol and in a chronicle in the public newspaper.
The rector said that when he speaks of “people with influence on power,” he is not talking about people with power. “I speak of people with access to power. I do not speak of deputies …) I never said any deputy and with me what happened was that the minister was being contacted and how there was no initiative to talk to me to know what was the position of U.Porto and why to take me the initiative to call him,” he said.
“Insistent calls from suicide mothers”
These threats occurred before the publication of a news on September 4, where António de Sousa Pereira said he received pressures from several people to let 30 candidates who had not obtained the minimum classification of 14 values.
The rector referred during the statements to the parliamentary committee that he received “insistent calls from a lady who claimed to be a student lawyer.”
“Eu I received phone calls from mothers who were on the brink of suicide. I can’t identify anonymous phone calls, but I have letters from alleged law firms, ”he said.
“If it became Document forgery crime“
The rector added that his life “reassured a lot” after the news of Expresso: “My quality of life has improved a lot.” He also said that “the cherry on the cake” at this controversy at the University of Porto happened last week when a “teacher” of the Special Competition Committee to the University of Porto Medicine Course, which said he did not participate in the minutes of the Scientific Committee of the Faculty of Medicine, nor signed them.
The rector revealed that this information was sent to the director of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto (FMUP). According to the rector this Case “became a crime of falsification of documents.”
In turn, the FMUP director stated that FMUP has not changed admission procedures since it started its term. “We have not changed our processes since 2019, since I am a director. If the processes are wrong has complained to the rectory of the University of Porto.”
In 2019 37 candidates entered this special contest with “less than 14 values” and there was no “there was no problem”, said the director of FMUP, as Sousa Pereira – although he said that this happened in circumstances were very different from 2025. The director added that the special contest was created to find doctors with other “academic paths”, with another “maturity”.
However, the director confessed a “lapse” of the executive board member in the special contest.
“If the processes are wrong is complaining to the rectory of the University of Porto, because in the processes there was no recent change,” he said. “There is only a lapse here. There is sir. My vowel, Master Hélio Alves, perhaps the result of his ingenuity, his good faith, finally and his inexperience, instead of putting the word ‘rectified’, put the word ‘approved’.
For the dean, the solution of this case “is to maintain the decision that the rectory approved in early July”, that is, to maintain the “right of the seven students who had more than 14 values.” Regarding the other 30 candidates, with lower grades, the dean argued that they should go to the courts and suggested that “they do not have threatening the rector that they know where he lives.”
On the day the news came out, the Porto Academic Federation required an “internal inquiry” to ascertain why the Director of the University of Porto Faculty of Medicine informs 30 candidates from the entry of medicine without authorization from the Rector of the University of Porto.
Candidates for the Special Competition for Access to the Integrated Master in Medicine at the University of Porto They are confessed to the universitysaying that they changed their city, abandoned jobs of years, invested in real estate and gave up masters.
On 18 September, the Attorney General’s Office confirmed to Lusa that running in the prosecutor related to the case of 30 candidates for the medical course at this University.
