Portugal will have an unprecedented platform to defend human rights
Amnesty International in Portugal, in partnership with seven organizations, is launching a project with the aim of creating the first Human Rights Platform in Portugal. The idea is to bring together associations from “different areas of human rights”, to “bring closer and strengthening the space of civil society”.
Susana Gaspar is the platform manager and, in conversation with TSFstates that “it is already important to establish [entre as organizações] ties that don’t exist, if they exist, are very few.” Basically, to make sure there is a kind of “common”.
The primary objective, according to the person responsible for the platform, is to speak with one voice: “We want to obtain contributions and criteria in the field of Human Rights in Portugal, to carry out this monitoring based on data that organizations already have.”
Data such as human complaints in Portugal, the number of victims of rights abuses currently available, because “the organizations guarding them are for them”, become visible. Susana Gaspar resources that “many times smaller organizations have to deal with complaints, denouncements” [que recebem de vítimas]statistically and perceive the reality of this community or these data”.
It is at this point that the platform promises to be a help, with support for this type of organizations, but not only. “If there is more to your strength, a campaign, a very important message from an organization that still doesn’t have its space of visibility, it is being more important for its strength, a campaign and a pressure that expects more than its space of visibility , be more and more platform.
To guarantee this diligence, Susana Gaspar explains that organizations cannot belong to any political party (…), to guarantee maximum exemption”.
As for platform funding, the manager will be precise. “We will seek international funding, there are foundations available to achieve this type of projects, but we will try not to undertake international funding, namely, through quotas and private donations. tainted with violations of human rights. Care must be taken in this regard”, he says.
Susana Gaspar expects the platform to be completed by December. For now, there are 7 organizations joining Amnesty International in the project, but the goal is to have at least 30 by the end of next year.
In a statement to which the TSF had access, “as founders of the platform” considers that “with the increase in cleavages and policies, or hate speech and the presence of discrimination, civil and political rights and freedom of expression are at risk in Portugal”.
The seven organizations that are already part of the project are ACTUAR – Association for Cooperation and Development, Akto – Human Rights and Democracy, APF – Association for Family Planning, APMJ – Portuguese Association of Jurists Women, FENACERCI – National Federation of Social Solidarity Cooperatives, ILGA Portugal – Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Intervention and the IGC – Ius Gentium Conimbrigae, human rights research institute at the Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra.
