José Sena Goulão / LUSA
Miguel Cardoso accuses several dozen Chega members of having insulted and physically threatened him during a flight between Lisbon and Brussels and has already filed a complaint with the Belgian police.
The activist and national director of the organization Black Europeans, Miguel Cardoso, filed a complaint with the Belgian police where he claims to have been the target of racist insults and threats from almost two dozen deputies, advisors and other members of Chega during a flight between Lisbon and Brussels, last Tuesday.
According to , which had access to the complaint, Cardoso was part of a delegation of community leaders invited by the Portuguese representation of the European Commission. The 39-year-old activist claims to have been the target of insults, constant teasing and the deliberate obstruction of the plane’s aisle.
Speaking to , the activist also accuses Chega members of telling him “when you arrive in Lisbon you will see, you get shot in the knees”, making monkey-like grunts and throwing insults like “black, monkey”, but “always as if they were talking to each other”. “They were careful to be discreet”, he says.
Miguel Cardogo also alleges that Chega’s parliamentary leader, Pedro Pinto, physically insulted and threatened him. “Go to hell. Do you want to go outside?“, the deputy said, according to the complaint. The activist also reports having heard phrases like “Do you think this is Africa?” and “The ‘mama’ is almost over.”
That same afternoon, the party published a video on social media accusing Miguel Cardoso of insulting deputies, accompanied by the caption: “o favorite behavior of the leftIn the video, Cardoso is seen calling Chega members “racists”.
The activist claims that the video was manipulated to present him as the aggressor. “The entire entourage started trying to intimidate me like a gang. It was only after more than seven or eight minutes that I responded”, he defends himself. Miguel Cardoso also says that he has received threats on social media that will also be the target of complaints in Portugal, with the PSP and PJ.
Journalist Paula Cardoso, who was traveling alongside him, says that they both tried to ignore the provocations during much of the flight. The situation worsened close to landing, when Paula Cardoso chanted “April 25th always, fascism never again” and played the song Grândola Vila Morena.
This is not the first time that Miguel Cardoso has made a complaint against Chega, having already criminal complaint filed against André Ventura in September, after the party leader accused his organization of using public funds to promote racism.
