Version imprimable"Our fight is every day, against racism and xenophobia!", "Equal rights", "Claudia Simões present!", "No justice, no peace". There were dozens of slogans and thousands of people shouting them in cities from the north to the south of the country.
The protesters remembered the African-American, George Floyd, murdered by the police, but they didn’t forget the other victims of different kinds of racism.
Lisbon, Porto, Coimbra, Braga, Viseu, Guarda and Faro all saw sizeable and lively demonstrations. One of the co-organisers of the Coimbra event, Leonardo, summed up the spirit of the protests for Esquerda.net: "we want to get people to understand that racism also exists in Portugal. And here in Portugal it has also claimed many victims – se we want to honour them too".
The Roma community is also a victim of racism and was keen to be present. José Fernandes insisted, "We’ve had enough of so much racism, so many problems with each other. We are all equal, all Portuguese people and all human beings. Down with racism!"
The Left Bloc Coordinator, Catarina Martins, was at the Lisbon protest to express "solidarity with all those who protest in the USA, but also knowing that structural racism is alive here too".
While another Left Bloc member of parliament and black activist, Beatriz Dias, explained that "we are here to pay homage to George Floyd, the African-American who was killed in the United States, but we also wanted to raise discussion about all the manifestations of institutional racism that affect the lives of black people in Portugal and in various parts of the world.”
6 June 2020
Translated by International Viewpoint from esquerda net.
