Portuguese president notes shift in country’s position on Palestine

President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said Portugal’s official position on the Palestinian question is changing, reminding protesting students that Portugal had recently adopted an official position in favour of Palestine’s entry into the UN as a full member.

To mark the anniversary of the birth of Portuguese poet Luís de Camões on Monday, the president spoke to students at the University of Coimbra who were demonstrating for the Palestinian cause near the Literature Faculty – an encounter he later spoke to journalists about.

“We have to acknowledge that reality is changing and has already changed the position of the Portuguese government,” said de Sousa, noting that those protesting against Israeli military intervention in Gaza and for the recognition of Palestinians want things to go faster.

In his talk with students, de Sousa recalled he had told them “two important things”, which include Portugal having “recently taken a position, for the first time, in support of Palestine’s entry as a full member of the United Nations” and having “recently signed a declaration in favour of the ceasefire” in the Gaza Strip.

Commenting on Portugal backing Palestine joining the UN as a member, he said “it had never happened before; it was only an observer,” adding that countries, including Portugal, voted in favour “with an overwhelming majority”.

“As a full member, [Palestine] now has a seat alongside the member states that are part of the United Nations,” he added.

At the university on Monday afternoon, the president addressed dozens of young demonstrators supporting the Palestinian cause, stressing Portugal’s positions in favour of a ceasefire in Gaza and the admission of Palestine as a full member of the United Nations.

Unlike Prime Minister Luís Montenegro, who had arrived a few moments earlier, the head of state went to meet demonstrators.

For five minutes, he listened to one of the demonstrators, who called for Portugal’s immediate diplomatic recognition of a Palestinian state and for “an end to the University of Coimbra’s complicity” with the Israeli state and the “massacre” of the Palestinian people.

After this statement, the president borrowed a microphone from the demonstrators and, in less than a minute, expressed his position on the current Palestinian reality.

The students have been camping outside the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Coimbra since 21 May, demanding an “end to the ongoing genocide in occupied Palestine”.

In a press release sent to Lusa at the end of May, the protesters demanded that the university take a “stand for an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire throughout the occupied Palestinian territory”, with the raising of the Palestinian flag on the institution’s tower and the end of all programmes, agreements and protocols with Israeli companies, institutions and universities, “as well as the refusal of any funding in academic curriculum by the State of Israel”.

According to another statement released in early June, the “Coimbra Students for Palestine” movement then accused the university of increasing the number of private security guards in the area, preventing student access to university spaces, and” intimidating and harassing” security guards.

(Pedro Morais Fonseca – edited by Pedro Sousa Carvalho | Lusa.pt)

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