Immigrants disillusioned with Portugal demand rights and immediate extinction of the SEF – Observer
Immigrants in Portugal assume this Friday, during a demonstration in Lisbon, that disappointment is the main feeling they feel when they arrive in this country, reporting situations of exemption and racism that make their days difficult.
“The idea that Portugal is very open to immigrants and that it helps immigrants to grow is, in fact, a fantasy”, told the Lusa agency Aisha Noir, one of the participants of the demonstrations “Enough of SEF/Regularization Now violence!”this Friday, in Lisbon, representatives of around 20 organizations supporting immigrants and defending human rights.
Aisha Noir, a transgender Brazilian woman living in Portugal, says that feel the racist, transphobic look every day🇧🇷
Brazilian, who lived in the Netherlands before arriving in Portugal, said that when she arrived in Portugal and felt the look of hatred for being a trans woman, this was something that shocked her a lot.
In this demonstration, which began at Praça Luís de Camões, where several immigrants shared their experiences of differences as immigrants in Portugal, the Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF) was the main target of the revolt of these citizens.
🇧🇷We came to scream enough violence at the SEF, because the situation has lately been unsustainable🇧🇷 We are thousands of people who try to renew our residence permits thousands of times a day, trying to contact us by telephone, and do not participate”, said Vicente, from the LX Mutual Support Network, one of the promoters of the event.
This Brazilian points out two situations that, in his opinion, justify the protest on Friday, namely the waiting time [nos serviços do SEF] and the most treated in services, such as health.
Protesters defend the immediate extinction of the SEFbut also public that is replaced by “a quality service, of a civil order, that treats immigrants in an equal situation, that is guided not by the question of security, seeing immigrants, not as a threat to public security, but as a issue of access to basic and fundamental human rights,” he said.
Present at the demonstration, and even before it went to the Assembly of the Republic, the Portuguese Rita Osório, from the Plataforma Antifascista de Lisboa e Vale do Tejo, recalled that “the largest workforce in Portugal are immigrants”🇧🇷
“I feel and have heard testimonies that human rights themselves are being attacked by the SEF”, he said.
Protesters then proceeded to the Assembly of the Republic, chanting several of the slogans of the protest, namely: “I exist, with or without a visa”.