Breaches of fundamental rule of law values resulted in 107 dismissals, forced retirements and expulsions within the Portuguese police force since 2019, Internal Administration Minister José Luís Carneiro announced on Tuesday.
Lawmakers heard Carneiro during Tuesday’s hearing on the alleged rule of law violations, including the dissemination of racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, and hate speech in the police force, as well as monitoring practices.
Carneiro presented findings for the PSP, the country’s civilian police force dispatched in cities and larger towns, and for the GNR, the military force which carries out policing duties in rural areas and smaller towns.
“Between 2019 and November 2022, 107 members of the PSP and GNR were dismissed, compulsorily retired and removed from service. Among these, 36 were dismissed, compulsorily retired and removed from service between May and November this year,” Internal Administration Minister José Luís Carneirominister said at a hearing on policing practices that was requested by several opposition parties.
Carneiro assured MPs that “the Inspectorate General of Internal Administration (IGAI), the command of the GNR and the PSP have been carrying out systematic, serious and rigorous work to improve recruitment, training, information, awareness-raising, monitoring and sanctions, to prevent individual attitudes and behaviours that undermine the values of the democratic rule of law”.
The minister also said that IGAI inspectors would conduct training next year on criminal matters from the judiciary.
The hearing with the minister comes after a report by a Portuguese consortium of investigative journalism, which includes journalists, lawyers and academics, saying that almost 600 members of the PSP and GNR, most of them active, allegedly used social media to violate the law by writing racist and hate messages.
After the report’s publication, the government announced that the IGAI would open an enquiry into this case of publications on social media by security force officers, which allegedly incite hatred and violence.
At the same time, the Attorney General’s Office has announced that it has opened an enquiry into these publications.
“The news that has come to light following a journalistic investigation must be the subject of lucid, firm, determined and consequent political action,” the minister stressed.
José Luis Carneiro said he had told the IGAI “to open an enquiry, as a priority, carried out with rigour, exemption, impartiality and independence, that ascertains, with objectivity, the facts, their origins and connections, their nature and that proposes decisions.”
“Lucid because we must avoid confusing the part with the whole. I am convinced that the overwhelming majority of the more than 40,000 police and militarised police officers, at all levels of the hierarchy, strive every day to defend constitutional values and the rule of law,” he said, stressing that “at all costs, the partisanship of such a sensitive issue in civilian life” should be avoided.
The minister also spoke about the position and decisions of GNR and PSP regarding this issue, namely the implementation of the Plan for the Prevention of Manifestations of Discrimination in the Security Forces and Services, approved in March 2021 and coordinated by IGAI.
According to the minister, this plan fulfils and implements a wide range of measures in five areas of intervention “considered priorities”, namely recruitment, training, interaction with citizens, promotion of the image of the security forces and communication, and preventive, monitoring and sanctioning mechanisms.
The minister also expressed “deep confidence in the security forces that ensure Portugal continues to be one of the safest countries in the world”.
(Célia Paulo/Lusa.pt)
Source: euractiv.com
