Freedom of Speech 1

Letter by Martins Junior, former Mayor of Machico and MP, published in DN.

I followed with much interest and curiosity the trial in which the plaintiff was the president of the regional government. Five long months of work for magistrates, witnesses, lawyers, court officials and above all for the accused: the former director of the Diário, Luís Calisto, and a young construction worker. The motive: an answer the latter had given to an online question the Diário had raised as to whether the (regional) president should continue or not as head of Government: ‘No, at least, not to continue benefitting the same clan that supports him’. For this statement alone, a case is drawn up, the court is convened, time is wasted, money is wasted, families are harassed... In short, the purest form of citizenship inscribed in the Constitution is killed off: the right to freely evaluate one’s government.

Observing the apparatus of the trial, the magistrates’ togas, the fine workmanship of the court-room, disillusioned and revolted, I asked myself: Was it for this that the Estado Novo (the so-called Old Madeira) invested so much in such a grandiose palace…to serve the whims of the ‘New Madeira’?

Its time for Madeirans to wake up!  Have you chosen a Man to govern or a ‘snitch’ to sit you in the dock? Have you chosen someone to look after your interests or someone to persecute you? Everyone was obliged to show up in court: Judge, Public Prosecutor, Lawyers, the Accused, Witnesses; all except one person: the ‘snitch’ himself, hidden in his bunker or his warren, ears taped up, with a deranged expression, fuming, ready to throw himself at anyone who opposes him, to harass them and to rob them of what is most precious, their freedom and their citizens’ rights. 

Alas, such was the inconvenience of this miserable court case that even the judge could not contain himself from advising the defense: ‘Hurry up. I have more important cases to deal with, of crimes and prisoners. I even have another case moved by the same plaintiff!’ The same plaintiff, the same (regional) President. The man who rails against the judicialisation of politics and rants against the non-elected is the first to ask the judges and the non-elected to condemn the electorate! 

What kind of generation are we bringing up? Do you want us to be deaf and dumb hunchbacks, apathetic  and anesthetized, do you want us to be reptiles crawling before any haggard occupant of the presidential palace?

I know what I am talking about. 22 years ago, the same plaintiff had me evicted from Parliament for over a year, without salary, just because I denounced the case of the silver that was stolen (from the Parliament), which the PSD inquiry ‘hushed up’. I was also tried. But I won the case and I re entered the Parliament with a red carnation on my lapel, under the drop-jawed, fallen gazes of the PSD MPs, who I addressed  from the tribune: ‘I thank God and Fate for having allowed you to live to see me enter here before those of you who evicted me one year ago!’

We cannot be silent, no! We are all guilty of this semantic joke that equates Autonomy with Dictatorship. In conscience, I  have to praise the courage of the young construction worker who left the court room acquitted and victorious. I congratulate the Diário and the lawyers who accepted to take this cause on and also the distinguished witnesses that were willing to lend their face.  It is due to you that Madeira is a little freer and more Autonomous!