Africa-Press – Cape verde. The deputies, meeting in the second session of this month, today condemned the death of Odair Moniz by the Portuguese police and expressed solidarity with his family.
The deputy of the Movement for Democracy (MpD), Lúcia dos Passos, recalled that this citizen was killed by an officer of the Public Security Police (PSP) in Amadora, who was once embraced by the President of the Republic of Portugal Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.
“Therefore, we repudiate the attitude of the president of the Chega party [André Ventura] and we believe that the Portuguese parliament should present a motion of censure against the intervention he made”, she stated.
In the meantime, she expressed the MpD’s solidarity with the victim’s family while also appealing to Cape Verdeans to remain in solidarity and to await the ongoing investigation calmly, asking the Cape Verdean government to be firm once the results are in.
For its part, the Independent and Democratic Union of Cape Verde (UCID), represented by MP Zilda Oliveira, also took the opportunity to condemn the death of Odair Moniz and expressed solidarity with his family.
“We are awaiting the results of the investigation and hope that justice will be done. We ask Cape Verdeans to remain calm and await the results of this investigation,” she said, warning that violence cannot be fought with violence.
This opposition party also took the opportunity to condemn all racist and xenophobic acts, stating that all human beings, regardless of colour, origin or culture, are equal.
The MP for the African Party for the Independence of Cape Verde (PAICV), João Baptista Pereira, also criticised the “sub-human conditions” that many Cape Verdeans have been living in abroad, particularly in Portugal, often victims of attacks by authorities.
“This moment of Cabral’s centenary symbolises that, in fact, Cape Verdeans cannot continue to be treated like this anywhere in the world, and we must denounce this and fight so that our land becomes the one Amílcar Cabral dreamed of, so that we never have to go through these situations again”, he stressed.
Orlando Dias, a member of parliament from the MpD, stressed that this act is reprehensible and argued that the State should adopt a “clear, tough stance”, as he believes that we are in a decade, in a phase of human development where racism and xenophobia cannot be tolerated.
Odair Moniz, aged 43, died at the São Francisco Xavier Hospital in Lisbon, where he was taken after being shot by a PSP officer in Cova da Moura in the early hours of Monday 21st, a situation that generated a wave of protest in the Zambujal neighbourhood, where he lived.
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