By CHRIS GRAEME chris.graeme@theresidentgroup.com
With 13,000 members and more than 15 branches throughout the country, Amnesty International Portugal (AIP) is tirelessly campaigning in the public arena and on parliamentary advisory committees to right the wrongs of social injustice both at home and abroad.
On Monday, the group celebrated its 29th anniversary in Lisbon and told the Algarve Resident about its principal, three-fold strategy in Portugal: to raise awareness of Angolan Government sanctioned forced evictions in Angola, the fight for equal rights for same sex couples and domestic violence issues.
It is also actively involved in human rights campaigns in Brazil, China, the Gaza Strip, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Iran and Haiti and its current projects embrace issues such as arms control, combating terrorism with justice, ending the death penalty and feminine circumcision.
“We’re celebrating our 29th anniversary by drumming up a 10,000 signature petition, where groups of friends and colleagues in the workplace can participate against the forced eviction of Angolans from their homes and land to make way for lucrative construction developments,” said Pedro Krupenski, the Executive Director of Amnesty International Portugal.
“Morning, noon or night, the residents of various neighbourhoods in Luanda and other towns are thrown out of their homes without any warning by the police, soldiers, municipal representatives and even private security firms,” he said.
On October 5, World Housing Day, the international human rights group marked the day by launching its campaign for Angola calling an end to the forced evictions with each signature representing one of the 10,000 families that have been made homeless since 2001.
Another of AIP’s campaigns is a drive to get the Government to create specialised police officers and magistrates to deal with Portugal’s worrying domestic violence problems.
“Just changing the law, which was a step in the right direction, isn’t enough,” says Krupenski who says that it doesn’t “sufficiently protect the victims of domestic abuse”.
According to the Portuguese Domestic Violence Observatory – UMAR (União de Mulheres Alternativa e Resposta), domestic violence against women is on the increase in Portugal with over 22,000 crimes registered by the PSP and GNR police forces last year, an increase of 10 per cent on the year before.
The worst affected areas are Lisbon (29.8 per cent) and Porto (26.7 per cent) with 80 per cent of the victims being women but interestingly 15 per cent of victims of domestic violence are men.
In 2009, 25 women were murdered as a result of domestic violence and 43 women suffered serious attempts on their lives.
For more information about AIP, please visit www.amnistia-internacional.pt (in Portuguese only)
