The words of far-right politician Andre Ventura in the Portuguese parliament yesterday shocked the country. Chega party leader Andre Ventura said Portugal should be able to build the new Lisbon airport, announced by the government this week, in less than 10 years.
HE TARGETED TURKS WITH THESE WORDS
According to Sözcü TV, Ventura said, “Istanbul airport was built and became operational within five years,” and commented, “Turks are not known as the hardest-working people in the world.”
MPs from left-wing parties said these words were racist and had no place in parliament and asked the speaker of the parliament, Jose Pedro Aguiar-Branco, to condemn these words.
THE RIGHT TO EXPRESSION DEBATE Erupted
But Aguiar-Branco, one of the ruling centre-right Social Democrats, said MPs had the right to express themselves and would not censor them.
Socialist lawmaker Alexandra Leitao then asked Aguiar-Branco during a parliamentary debate whether she would allow politicians to say that “a particular race or ethnicity is stupider, lazier, or less valuable than others.”
“In my opinion, they can say it. Freedom of expression is guaranteed in the constitution,” Aguiar-Branco said. “The verdict on the political discourse made here (in the parliament)… will be given by the people at the ballot box,” he said.
PARLIAMENT IS CONFUSED
Livre’s Isabel Mendes Lopes said that the comments made in parliament could have direct consequences on people’s lives and commented, “Racism is a crime.”
Anti-immigrant, populist Chega is the third largest political party in Portugal, having quadrupled its representation in parliament to 50 MPs in the general elections in March.
Ventura was fined in 2020 for discriminatory statements against Roma people and was also condemned for comments he made about a black MP.
At the peak of the Black Lives Matter movement, which started in the USA in 2020 and spread to many countries, he organized a demonstration in Portugal to deny that racism was a problem.
