Miguel Albuquerque, September 1, 2022: “Hyperbole attracts attention today and often changes the facts, but the proof is this: we have never lived as safely and with so little violence as today.”
Pedro Calado, October 26, 2022: “This problem [a criminalidade associada à população sem-abrigo e ao consumo de novas substâncias psicoativas] is gaining in scale because the approach to this problem has been dormant for a long time and we are hit by a snowball that is already relatively large […]🇧🇷 We have an army, we have a GNR, we have other military entities that can conduct this patrol, which, as we know, is a deterrent to the presence of many of these people on the streets.”
The former has been president of the regional government of Madeira since 2015 and was mayor of Funchal from 1994 to 2013; the second is already Vice-President of the Regional Government and President of the Chamber of Funchal since the last municipal elections in September 2021. There is a difference of 56 days between the two statements.
On Thursday, September 1, 2022, Miguel Albuquerque stated that the issue of security should not be “dramatized”, that the number of insecurity figures around the world and in the autonomous community has decreased and that the “extrapolation of the facts”, as a result of the ” media epiphenomenon” and “hyperbole”, is generated via the internet and social networks.
The commander of the PSP of Madeira, Luís Simões, spoke in the “factual and pragmatic” analysis, as he emphasized, which made the data, of a 7.9% reduction in reported crime and 18.4% in serious crimes. crime in 2021: “These were the best numbers of the past decade in terms of reported crime.” Translate into numbers? Less a thousand crimes. Figures likely to be “unrepeatable” in the coming years, taking into account the return to social normality after the end of restrictions due to covid-19.
In this speech, Luís Simões left the warning that the crime associated with the homeless population and the consumption of new psychoactive substances [o caso do bloom] it will not be solved with more police, but with “multidisciplinary solutions” and “clinical and social responses on a case-by-case basis”.
“The PSP is willing to cooperate, but rejects the easy and pointless accusations that place all responsibility on the police,” he stressed.
More police and work
56 days later, Pedro Calado dramatized the speech. “Just walk the streets of Funchal, any time of the day or night, and I challenge anyone, I often do this round myself, to find a police officer. He finds one for Banco de Portugal, but he is the only one. I am sorry. is that, on the part of the Portuguese state, the PSP is unable to intensify its patrols on the streets against these situations.”
56 days earlier, the Secretary of State for the Interior, Isabel Oneto, had announced an investment of 12 million euros for the construction and rehabilitation of the police stations of Ponta do Sol, Calheta (west), Santa Cruz, Machico (east) and Porto Santo.
The Ministry of the Interior (MAI), contacted by the DN, recalls that the PSP apparatus in the Autonomous Region of Madeira – with 735 staff – has just received 36 additional elements, with the recent recruitment of more than 900 new police officers of the course, in Torres Novas. Enter “36 by the end of 2023, but 52 will leave”, says source linked to the process.
The MAI will not comment on Pedro Calado’s “challenge” for the military to patrol the streets of Funchal. Rather, he refers to Albuquerque’s words on Sept. 1, “extrapolating from the facts,” “hyperbole,” “we have never lived as safely and with so little violence as we do today.” The Ministry of Defense, for its part, prefers not to comment.
The law and what the PSD thinks
“No one defends an armed army, what we are asking is the support and presence of unarmed soldiers for deterrent surveillance in certain areas of Funchal,” Pedro Calado explains to DN.
And for the avoidance of doubt, he assures that “the city of Funchal is a safe city. What we have seen is an increase in the use of synthetic drugs. This problem is visible in the old area and now also in the high We closed alleys, complicated streets and empty houses and they also went to the high areas… This creates a climate of insecurity”.
“If the PSP doesn’t have the resources and if the GNR doesn’t have powers, it’s not unreasonable to call in the military’s help. And why couldn’t they if they cooperate with the pandemic, for example?” , asks the mayor of Funchal.
“With all due respect to Mr. [Pedro Calado]but the armed forces cannot, they have no constitutional police functions,” explains Jorge Bacelar Gouveia, a professor, constitutionalist, who does not “achieve”, as one can elaborate, “not even in theory”, a “challenge, a challenge like what has been done” because it violates “the constitution, the laws of the republic, the law of national defense”.
“The armed forces are not internal security forces. This cannot be done. It would only be possible if there were martial law, which is not the case. The armed forces can cooperate in civil defense operations, but policing is not civil protection And the argument that they go out into the street unarmed, it doesn’t matter. It’s not armed or unarmed. The role of the police doesn’t depend on the weapons you have,” explains the professor.
“It’s not quite right,” said Fernando Negrão, magistrate, PSD deputy, former chairman of the board of directors of the Institute of Drugs and Drug Addiction, former Director General of the Judicial Police and former Minister of Social Security, Family and Child.
Without going into too many considerations, the current chairman of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees adds two reasons that he considers easy to understand at the moment: “For humanitarian reasons it is a mistake “Because this is not the way is to deal with this problem. For economic reasons it is a mistake, because tourists certainly don’t want to see the army on the street.”
Cláudia Aguiar, from Madeira, MEP for the PSD, says: “If it’s the army, of course I don’t agree.🇧🇷 The problem [da toxicodependência e criminalidade associada] identified for some time. I believe that Pedro Calado is not just targeting the military, which is something that exists in other countries with regimes that are contrary to the regime we support. I can’t believe you have that in mind.”
“If there is indeed not enough PSP, they must be strengthened, so that we have them on the street with this deterrent effect. More police will not solve the problem, but soften it,” says the former social-democratic deputy.
Paulo Cunha, vice president of the PSD, has a different reading: admitting the use of the armed forces. “The question of the army will be presented as a solution of appeal, given the verification of its inevitability. We know that the presence of the army on the street is still associated with an image that is not the best for most Portuguese, the pre – April 25, but the Portuguese state cannot continue with palliative solutions, it must seek effective answers that restore the sense of security to the Portuguese.”
The explanation is simple: “We must start with conventional means” [as atuais polícias e a GNR] and trying to understand how to maximize them. The day we find out it’s not possible, because surely others will be used, namely the military.”
Refusal to “absurdity”
Marcos Perestrello, deputy of the PS, former Secretary of State for Defense and current chairman of the Parliamentary Commission for National Defence, sums up the intentions of the mayor of Funchal in one sentence: “This makes absolutely no sense. of the phenomenon. It makes no sense.”
Pedro Filipe Soares, Parliamentary Leader of BE, thinks it is “absurd that someone in the 21st century, in 2022, two decades after we made changes to the legislation on drug addiction problems and related crime, would say that what is needed for the Army to take to the streets to respond to these problems. This shows complete insensitivity on the one hand and ignorance on the other.”
“To meet the challenge that has been done,” he adds, “is because you don’t know or don’t want to recognize that the approach should not be just policing, but a structured approach across the different dimensions of the problem, to achieve the result we want, which is to bring more security, more guarantees for public order.”
For the PCP, “this kind of intervention by the mayor of Funchal is meaningless and contrary to the interests of the population and the city”, because “social problems cannot be solved in this way and with these kinds of solutions they are solved with social and economic policy”.
And, like Fernando Negrão, of the PSD, the PCP also raises the issue of the “economy of Funchal”, which “essentially lives off tourism”. Therefore, “having a city full of soldiers is not going to be a situation that tourists want to see”.
And finally, a note: Pedro Calado should definitely “know the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic and the distinction it makes between national defense and internal governance”.
Rui Tavares, from Livre, recalls that “there are municipal police throughout the country which essentially ensure greater proximity between the security forces and the population; in Funchal, despite the fact that its creation has already been proposed, PSD and its chairman disagreed with the creation of the same […]🇧🇷 Livre opposes this proposal from the mayor of Funchal and defends the creation of the municipal police, which the PSD does not seem to want to remain “like terrorist attacks.”
“It has no head or tail. The Portuguese Armed Forces are engaged in military functions, not civilian functions of security, inspection, etc. Every monkey in itself. This makes absolutely no sense,” said Nuno Morna, of the Liberal Initiative.
Miguel Castro, from Chega, for his part, says that “the problem is not the lack of agents. The problem is the legal framework. It is necessary to criminalize possession for individual consumption, criminalize this trade and consumption on the street “.
Speaking to DN, Pedro Calado makes a similar claim that “the fundamental problem is the non-criminalization of those who trade these synthetic drugs that escape drug lists and of those who use these types of substances, that’s the problem”.
Paulo Cunha also believes that “the legislation is not suitable for the new substances” and that therefore even “from a health point of view it makes sense to consider the amendment, reconsider the law and see if it is amended. That’s it.” well” .
Source: DN
