The councilor of Cascais, Carla Nunes Semedo, reported a racist attack against her daughter, Diana, by a bus driver in the village.
“My daughter, Diana, one of the most polite, understanding, and caring people I know, was the victim of a racist attack: the bus driver thought it was appropriate to tell her that he didn’t transport animals. Yes, in 2025. In Portugal. In Cascais,” wrote Carla Nunes Semedo on Instagram on Sunday.
She stated that she would file a complaint for racism against a driver of the transport company Carris Metropolitana.
In messages, the councilor noted that the incident occurred on a Carris Metropolitana bus, which provides public road transport service in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area.
Carla Nunes Semedo has also contacted the company, which promised to “take action” and provided a contact to which she can send the written complaint, a step she has not yet completed.
Lusa requested clarification from Carris Metropolitana regarding the case.
In her Instagram statement, the head of Health Promotion, Child and Youth Protection, Gender Equality, and Social Innovation at Cascais Council warned of the “concerning trend” of the “normalization” and “loss of shame” in hate speech.
“The ease with which what was camouflaged for years under the veil of ‘political correctness’ is now spoken. (…) It is hard to write this. But it is harder to stay silent. To those still feeding racist discourses, with words or complicit silences, I leave a clear message: we are no longer the same. We are no longer those who, out of respect or fear, swallowed the hate disguised as ‘opinion’. We are no longer those who accepted offenses in the name of social peace,” warned the Cascais councilor.
In the end, she left a message of unity to ensure that “prejudice does not sit behind the wheel of what is public.”
“Not today, not ever. If society is changing, so are we! With our children, no. With my daughters, never,” she concluded.
