In a statement, a group of awardees, recognized for their actions in support of freedom, calls on the President to “take an unequivocal stand condemning the State of Israel’s policy towards Palestine and to support Portugal’s immediate recognition of the State of Palestine.”
The note, titled “WE CANNOT REMAIN SILENT,” signed by figures such as April military figure Vasco Lourenço, president of the Associação 25 de Abril, and former journalist José Rebelo, condemns “the military and police operations launched in Gaza and the West Bank by Israeli authorities, causing widespread destruction of the territory, thousands of deaths, injuries, and political prisoners.”
Among the 64 signatories are historians Fernando Rosas and José Pacheco Pereira, journalist Diana Andringa, physician Isabel do Carmo, former Minister of Culture José António Pinto Ribeiro, director of Jornal de Letras José Carlos Vasconcelos, researcher and April military figure Pedro Pezarat Correia, who commanded the former Southern Military Region, and former Justice Ministers Alberto Martins and Vera Jardim.
“The genocide of the Palestinian People, to which we are daily witnessing, amid the indifference or even complicity of many governments of countries that claim to be defenders of Human Rights, compels us to publicly reaffirm the values we have fought for and continue to defend, in absolute repudiation of the criminal actions being carried out by the State of Israel and its leaders,” the statement adds.
Other signatories include researcher Alfredo Caldeira, professor Ana Prata of the Faculty of Law at the New University of Lisbon, April military figures António Rosado da Luz, Aprígio Ramalho, Carlos Albino, José Duarte Mendes, and José Manuel da Costa Neves, researcher Maria Clara de Barros Queiroz, professor at the University of Lisbon, Army Colonel Manuel Pedroso Marques, former president of the Lusa agency, who participated in a military and civil action against the dictatorship in 1961.
The group emphasizes that, as recipients of the distinction honoring “significant services rendered to the cause of democracy and freedom” and also defined as “significant services rendered in defense of the values of Civilization, in favor of the dignity of the Human Person and the cause of Liberty,” they feel this distinction “strengthens their resolve” and “increases responsibilities” to prompt a position from the President of the Republic.
Among the signatories are also Maria João Gerardo, Mário Cabrita, Mário Simões Teles, Mário Tomé, Nuno Santos Silva, Orlando Carvalho Abreu, Pedro Lauret, Ramiro Soares Rodrigues, Rodrigo Pizarro, Sara Amâncio, and Agostinho Vidal de Pinho.
