Jardim steps down, 2014 in review

Jardim resigned as head of the Regional Government on the 12th of January, following internal elections won by the former mayor of Funchal, Miguel Albuquerque. The latter beat Jardim's appointed successor, Miguel António Correia, in the second round of elections.

2014 was rather depressing. Not only was the Cuba Livre hidden debt investigation shelved by the prosecutor, despite having found that the debt was deliberately hidden. Nobody was held accountable, which is typical of the Public Prosecution in Portugal.

The eight PND activists accused in the protest held in the Jornal da Madeira were convicted. The judge, Joanna Dias, known to be pro-regime even noted that it was not proved that the Jornal is not impartial - when even the candidates to the leadership of the PSD were publicly protesting its being an instrument of Jardim. The judgement is being appealled.

In the light of the judgement, the PND put in a request that the cases brought against the Jornal for election violations be speeded up. Two weeks later they were all shelved with absolutely absurd premises. Such as that the newspaper was not responsible for opinion pieces, ignoring the fact that all the opinion peices were written by Jardim's party members and there was no pluralism of opinion whatsoever. In one case the prosecutor even ignored completely two decisions of the Constitutional Court taken before the elections, which the Jornal chose to ignore. We appealed both.In the first case, the judge maintained the Public Prosecutor's view; in the second, the one with the two decisions of the Constitutional Court, the judge has remained silent...

Gil Canha and I were also convicted in the lower court in two libel cases brought against the Garajau over the Ports case.  Last year, however, the Supreme Court acquitted the Sol newspaper, against which the Ports had brought an action against an article which covered most of the same material. As our lawyer pointed out, the jurisprudence is shifting from the Courts protecting the powerful, to protecting the right to criticise, even if the criticisms are unpleasant.

In Court the accusation lawyer made much of his friendship with Cristina Pedra and that she had been appointed advisor to the Court, such was her fantastic reputation. He centered his attack on the fact we were convinced that criminal accusations would result of the investigation, which turned out not to be the case. Our lawyer then proceeded through all the scams the company had made, that despite not being criminal, due to the nature of the company, meant that perhaps Cristina Pedra may not be held up to be the saint she was being portrayed as being, but rather as an ordinary mortal. He noted the political controversy over the ports monopoly, which still exists to this day, and the political role of the Government in maintaining the system, and the sale of its quota of the company soon after the facts which were subject of the investigation became public.

2014 A year of trials

The year 2014 is for me the year for Justice because it is also a year of trials.

Despite this end-of-regime decadence when even Bertie's top party members are dissenting and denouncing persecution, election-rigging, and funniest of all, that the PSD has become one-man-show, the Justice system has suddenly seen fit to finish all the remaining Garajau cases in one go. Don't get me wrong, I find it fantastic that the Justice system is getting its act together - I only object to its one-sidedness. The corruption cases and cases of election violations etc remain on the back burner, with no signs of moving ahead. The libel cases against those who denounce what's wrong (the word corruption cannot be used in Portugal since such a thing does not exist in this country) move speedily towards conclusion.

As I was saying all the remaining cases of the Garajau are to reach a conclusion this year. By last year, of the dozens and dozens of criminal complaints against the Garajau, only eight remained. And if anyone was wondering why this blog had been rather silent of late, the reason is that we had eight overlapping trials set start between the November 2013 and February this year. All the remaining eight cases were to go on trial within a four-month period! The justice system is busy with us!

Of these eight, two have been disposed of. Of the six remaining ones, four have been moved by the ports monopoly. Three of these cases pertain to the same factual matter and, cumulatively, a compensation of five hundred and fifty Euros in damages is being asked… for a satirical newspaper with an edition of 1500, less than half of which sold. Such hefty compensations are very dissuasive  indeed and the fact is that the ports have since largely been left to their own devices, both by regional and national papers. But the insistence to prosecute has lead me to take up the matter again, and look into the justice system's follow-up to the ports investigation, which is proving rather interesting.

Since I have decided that I will devote this year to writing about Justice rather than politics, I will be doing a review of the ports case and other such investigations, while simultaneously relating the developments in the various trials.

 

Welsh and Canha vs Portugal at the European Court Verdict

The European Court has overturned a verdict condemning myself and Gil Canha of difamation. The case was brought against us by the Vice President of Madeira, Cunha e Silva, for a report written in the satirical newspaper, Garajau.

The article was about the contracting of the lawyer, Garcia Pereira, a leader of the Portuguese Maoist Party, MRPP, resorting to government funding to sue the Garajau over articles on the dealings of Cunha e Silva.

The accused were absolved in the lower Court, where the judge made some very pertinente observations on the way public funding was being against the press. The appeals Court, though not calling into question the substance of the facts, overturned the ruling, condeming us to pay compensation to the Vice President.

The European Court has now overruled that verdict, saying the judgement violated article 10 of the convention and ntoing that such procedures were detrimental to press freedom.

See:

http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/sites/eng/pages/search.aspx?i=001-126356

Eight charged over Jornal protest

The Public Prosecutor´s Office is bringing criminal charges against 8 candidates of the PND, New Democracy Party, for the protest carried out against the Jornal da Madeira during the last regional elections campaign. The Eight are:

Marcio Amaro, actor
Dionisio Andrade, retired journalist, former president of the Madeira journalist's trade union
Helder Spinola, University lecturer, former president of the environmental NGO Quercus
Joel Viana, PND General Secretary, teacher
António Fontes, lawyer
Gil Canha, City Councilor, former head of environmental NGO Cosmos
Baltasar de Aguiar, lawyer
Eduardo Welsh, sinologist

Criminal proceedings were brought by the Jornal's director, Rui Nobrega Gonçalves, no stranger to the Public Prosecutor's Office himself. Nobrega has been investigated several times by the Criminal Police and the Public Prosecutor's Office, but he seems to lead a charmed life. Recently, a corrupt magistrate in the Public Prosecutor's Office threw out an investigation into fraud at the Jornal which had been instigated at the request of the Court Auditors. The corrupt magistrate, by all accounts a friend of Nobrega's wife, who is a judge, simply chose to turn a blind eye to the law.

Nobrega's luck, however, seems to be changing, and his days of impunity may be over. The editor of the Jornal is being charged by the Public Prosecutor's Office with violation of the election law and the Public Prosecutor's Office has ruled that the charges have to be extended to the Company itself and therefore its Director, Nobrega. This is the first of four charges of election law violation brought against Bertie's paper.

Condemned for Libel

The author of this blog has been condemned to pay 6000 Euros to the manager of the Jornal da Madeira, Rui Nobrega as a result of a civil suit. The case was brought against the Garajau newspaper for a report on the criminal investigation carried out by the Investigative Police on the performance of Rui Nobrega when he was acting as a bankruptcy executor.

The investigation found that contrary to regulations, Nobrega failed to open an account in the name of the creditors, using instead the personal account of himself and his wife - a judge. The bankrupt company, called Masiluz, belonged to one of Jardim's chronies, Manuel da Luz, who regularly accompanied Jardim in his summer banquets (paid by public and private companies), known as the 'summer university'. Nobrega sold part of the goods of the bankrupt company back to a company belonging to Manuel da Luz's son in law, at prices which did not benefit the creditors. Nobrega was acquitted by the judge before the trial phase - he claimed not to know the connection between the two parties. The Investigative Police was reportedly unhappy about the acquittal, but had no power to appeal the decision. The Court found that the Garajau article was slanted against Nobrega, raising questions as to his acquittal.

In its few years of existence, the Garajau satirical newspaper was target of dozens and dozens of court cases, which all added up, asked for close to a million Euros in compensation. Most of the cases were thrown out or dropped. But the Garajau still had to pay thousands of Euros in judicial fees. Many of the cases were brought by members of the Regional Government and were paid for by the taxpayer. The Garajau was acquitted in all the criminal suits that went to Court, except one case which is pending at the European Court of Human Rights. One case was dropped during the trial phase itself when witnesses called for the prosecution divulged information that could have lead to self-incrimination.

Rui Nobrega has been the subject of various investigations and has been very gently dealt with, not to say protected, by the Public Prosecutor's Office. In 2009, the Court Auditors sent their report to the Public Prosecutor's Office in order that they invstigate the 'fake business' of the Jornal cover price. The Jornal has a cover price of 10 cents, but is distributed for free. The distributor 'bought' the Jornal and then was paid handsomely for distributing the Jornal for free. The 10 cent cover price was and is a ruse to recieve the official publicity of the municipalities, which by law can only be made in paid newspapers. The Public Prosecutor's Office, after two years of so-called investigation, shelved the case saying that the 10 cent cover price had no juridical relevance ...omitting any reference to the law that prohibits official municipal publicity in freeby newspapers.

Why Jardim hates the English

In the early 90's, when Jardim's party was beset with corruption scandals, Jardim began a more belligerent phase of his now 3 decade-long rule. With a tame TV and the Jornal under his control, the only news that bothered him was the Diário, half-owned by the Blandy family. Jardim needed a new fight to take the attention off the corruption and persecution scandals. He blamed the Diário and the English and set out on a hate-speech campaign, saying that the English wanted to return to the days of the dictatorship. He claimed there was no democratic opposition, that the Socialist Party had been infiltrated by the communist Party and wanted to install a totalitarian regime which would then be controlled by the English. He then set out to persecute and destroy the English and Anglo-descendent families by constantly vilifying them, destroying their businesses and expropriating their assets.

The campaign against the Diário then also began in earnest. He threatened those who put publicity in the Diário and ostracised all those who had any connection to the English. On many occasions over the last decades, he has threatened to expropriate the Diário itself and to find other means to run the 'foreigners' off the island. The English were the perfect scapegoats for all that went wrong. Like the Jews in Nazi Germany, they were portrayed as evil, shady characters, who were only interested in exploiting the Madeiran people. Like the Jews in Nazi Germany, Jardim used the law and state power to expropriate their assets, offering a symbolic compensation for them. The 'church' newspaper, the jardim-controlled Jornal, was one of the main vehicles for propagating this message. And 'cartoons' such as the one above showing the british flag and attacking the English have appeared on an almost weekly basis over the years

World Association of Newspapers writes to President Cavaco

The World Association of Newspapers (WAN) sent a second letter to President Cavaco Silva about the Jornal da Madeira. The letter states that the Jornal has ignored the decisions and recommendations of the Press Regulation Entity and the Competition Authority  and that the distortion in the Madeira press market has worsened over the years.

The WAN is concerned about the funding conceded to the Jornal in the 2012 budget, which disrespect the recommendations of the above-mentioned entities. This ‘seems to confirm that the Jornal da Madeira is a publicly-funded tool used to support the President of the Regional Government who is in power for 34 years’.

According to the WAN the funding exceeds what any private investor could be expected to inject into a press company and result in a massive distortion of what should be a free and transparent press.

The Wan urges the Portuguese President to, in conjunction with the Prime Minister, ‘take the necessary measures to terminate the use of public funding which violates the principles of freedom of expression.’

Jornal's veiled bomb threat to Journalists

The Jornal da Madeira issued a veiled bomb threat to the journalists Tolentino Nobrega of the Publico and Lilia Bernardes of the Lisbon Diário de Notícias.

The threat came in the anonymous daily cartoon Boca Pequena, which is often used by President Jardim to send messages promising retaliations, expropriations and inciting violence against particular targets. Once the threats have been carried out, they are complimented by a 'you had been warned message' in a follow-up cartoon.

In this cartoon, published on the 2nd of May, one character accused the two journalists of writing things against Madeira, the other replied that they would have to escape to the mainland 'after John's birthday'. The latter was the codeword for the FLAMA separatist terrorist movement's blowing up of the regional radio station in 1975.

The reference is common knowledge to all those who lived through this period, particularly to people such as Tolentino, who himself escaped a car bomb attack in those dark years of Jardim's rise to power.

President Jardim insinuates Angela Merkel and Michael Blandy are Nazis

The opinion piece published in the government-owned newspaper, the Jornal , has motivated a protest from the German community. Read Jardim’s rant below:

‘Blandy, aber wer ist?’

Herr Blandy, an individual who inherited an English fortune made in other times when the Madeiran People were miserably exploited, has mobilized his “SS assault troops” – a mongrel corps that ranges from communists to the extreme right and which calls the daily edition of a political pamphlet  “journalism” – to once again attack me and [my] regional politics.

The devil could criticize Madeira and the now unmasked germanophile Blandy would immediately place his legions at the service of evil.

Whatever it costs him, however high the cost to the companies of his group, with his absurd objective of “total war” he finds a pretext even in the unhappy declarations of a German female politician, who we do not confuse with the German People. (…)

Wagnerianly imbued with the “mission” to destroy the PSD and myself, like an excursion of the Nibelungs, Blandy and his “SS assault troops” everyday produce a paper with a longing to destroy everything, to vilify everything, and even more so now that the Country and the Autonomous Region are living their most difficult moments.

Its exactly the practice of all totalitarian forces that, when they foresee difficulties in the areas that they illegitimately detest, to seek to destroy everything in order to conquer easily. Or reconquer. Because there are those who still dream of the power of the pre-autonomy groups.

Only that this tragic delirium, born of mad ambition and condemned to failure, limits itself to listening to a few profoundly stained minions, and forgets ALL those who are also Business people, whose concern is that the present situation be overcome with intelligence and a firm hand. Otherwise, EVERONE  loseS. It is a fantasy to think that an adult society such as the Madeiran one, would allow the “masters of the past” to immorally take advantage of this juncture to swallow up everything on the cheap.

What the media of the obliging Merkelian Blandy is doing with its campaigns of hate and lies against myself and the PSD, cowardly taking advantage of the present circumstances in an attempt to erase the merit of [my] transformation of the archipelago, is too awful and incompetent to succeed in the heart of a Madeiran People, which is used to confronting difficulties and which, despite these, never loses its reason. Much less being crazy enough to return to the Madeira of the old days. At best, the madness of Herr Blandy will entertain a tacky minority.

This time, the rag has resorted to people who it has forgotten warn not to talk rubbish and has produced a text as bad as “mein Kampf”.

For example, there appeared some guy, owner of a restaurant – wer ist?- who has here found the conditions afforded to him to earn a living, something which he does not seem to have enjoyed in his native Country. Another one who “bites the hand that feeds him”. Since he probably never managed to learn Portuguese, he speaks of a nonexistent – quite the contrary – “agressivity towards Germany” (as if Merkel was Germany), and do you know what he wants?... That money should be given to small enterprises – such as his own, of course… - and not for the benefit of the collectivity!...and he has  the ignorant arrogance of saying that “building in Machico was carried out with no planning”!...The effrontery!

Ah, but there follows the nonsense of people who we don’t confuse with the Values of the majority of the German People living on the island. Observe the model of development that those interviewed have destined for us: “take advantage of the natural resources (!?), and not build on them”; “the [old]roads which were hand built” and which should remain open in order that, if an accident happens, they can come and demand compensation.

More: “there is a lack of other interests besides the mountains”. Man, not even the museums, not even the sea and nautical activities, not even the food and the folklore, not even the night, nor the casino, nor the contrasting landscape or the sports infrastructures, including golf, not even the botanical species, nor the hospitality and the permanent relation with our People, not even commerce with competitive prices in relation to tourists’ country of origin, or is it in the places of “Mass tourism” that you find a greater choice?...

I begin to think that there are some naturists around, who steeped in the vegetation, do not know what’s going on around them, even talking about the “Rabaçal cable car” that was never built, since we dropped the project. Now you will find that the Blandy paper, which was always against its construction, will raise a stink because it was never built. (…)

Oh, and the Blandy “assault troops” recruitment did not even neglect the sylph, Herr Delinger, especially chosen for being announced a member of the future socialist government of Madeira, stillborn, given the electoral hiding they received. And I’d not be surprised if this was not also Herr Delinger’s fault.

More. I began to fear for an Austrian “anschluss”. Didn’t the Austrian consul, a coastal madeiran such as myself, also join the party of these Valkyries?!...

Alas, Von Blandy’s daily is always on the path of negativism and of the nihilism of historical sectors of German philosophy. Not that those people know what that is. But because they believe themselves to be the navel of the world, they are convinced that their campaigns to instill hatred will take them somewhere…except there. And Herr Blandy maybe dreams of a new British “reich” over the Madeiran People. But …”Blandy, aber wer ist?”

Another Political Trial Bites the Dust

The Court of Appeal has absolved  Paulo Barata of defamation. The charges related to a reader’s letter published in the Diário de Notícias in 2004.

Paulo Barata, a militant of the Socialist Party wrote a humorous letter with nine pieces of advice for Jardim. The latter, again resorting to public money, accused the author of defamation. This is a stratagem regularly used by Jardim to silence critics, intimidate the press and earn a few bob for himself (not to mention the coterie of expensive lawyers employed for this purpose).

Hitler court case decision

The Court of Funchal acquitted Eduardo Welsh of an accusation of defamation and abuse of press freedom, for having published a photomontage of the President of the Regional Government of Madeira, Alberto João Jardim, dressed as Hitler, on the cover of the ‘Garajau’ newspaper.

The decision considered the Public Prosecutor’s accusation to be unfounded and also acquitted the accused of paying the 5.000 Euro compensation demanded by Jardim.

The judge cited jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights in his extensive analysis of the constitutional right to freedom of expression when this collides with the constitutional right to good name, reputation and image.

He concluded that Jardim’s character had not been smudged by the caricature which aimed to criticize acts of ‘intolerance’, ‘incitement to violence’ and his recurrent use of ‘subliminally aggressive’ language to attack political opponents.

Jardim was condemned to pay the costs of the court fees.

President refuses debates with ‘traitors’

The National Commission of Elections is coming to Madeira form the 17^th to the 20th of July, to hold meetings with the press in the run up to the regional elections in Madeira.

In response to this news, President Jardim accused the National Commission of Elections and the Press Regulation Entity of coming to Madeira to influence the elections against the Regional Government. Asked whether he would participate in debates, Jardim refused the idea, saying he does not sit with ‘traitors’. He added that neither Government, nor the Parliament, nor his own Party or the Jornal da Madeira would receive the Commission or hold any contacts with it, since he does not recognize its authority.

One of the issues on the agenda is sure to be the case of the state-funded newspaper,  Jornal da Madeira. During the legislative elections, in June, the Commission requested that the Jornal either suspend the collaboration of election candidates or included opinion pieces from candidates of all parties. The Jornal duly suspended President Jardim’s articles, but continued to only publish opinion pieces of members of his party, which naturally slated all the other parties. Although state entities have moved at snail-pace to respond to the many complaints against this situation, each small decision has made Jardim’s position increasingly untenable.

No venues available for 'The Great Fraud' book launch

The launch of 'Jardim, the Great Fraud' due to take place next Tuesday has been postponed. Originally booked to take place at FNAC, it was suddenly cancelled due to 'agenda problems'. The Hotel CS then agreed to hire out a conference room only to cancel it the following day. A further six or seven venues were contacted, all with the same outcome. No one dares to take on the book launch in a land where all know that whoever dares to do so will be targeted with retaliation and persecution.

Cardoso Ribeiro's book is in fact a case study of such persecutions, with particularly illuminating chapters on persecutions within the church and the civil service. It candidly explores Jardim's relation to the justice system, to state entities and the media. Its an extremely good read and a damning testimony on our 33-year long regime. 

It is no wonder that people know this book will touch a raw nerve. It provides the most senstitive analysis yet on Jardim's intimate relation to the Dictatorship and the Church on the one hand, and his shady links to the FLAMA terrorists on the other. It has a wonderful interview with the General Azeredo, who was posted to Madeira as military governor following the revolution, which explains how and why the  authorities turned a blind eye to terrorism. It has a wealth of documents from well-known politicians and analysts condemning the situation on Madeira, although the most influential of these are the very same people who also publicly extol him as a 'great democrat'.

The Jornal vs the Diário

The regional  parliament’s  commission of enquiry on the press, instituted by the local PSD and comprised of PSD MPs came to the conclusion that the Diário wants to close the Jornal da Madeira. What a joke!

For many years President Jardim has ranted and raged against the Diário saying it is the main opposition on the island and that without the Diário no opposition would exist.

For over a decade, he has been promising and threatening to expropriate the Diário and to do so in such a way as to cause the greatest financial damage to its owners. He also threatened that the scope of Government measures taken to harm the interests of the DN owners would reach beyond the Diário newspaper itself and affect other areas.

In his official speeches, in the fashion of a true dictator, President Jardim has repeatedly urged businessmen to boycott advertising in the Diário. He once even burned a copy of the Diário in public.

Eventually, seeing that expropriating the Diário newspaper, the only real rival of the Jornal, would cause too great a scandal, Jardim announced that he would adopt more refined methods and that there was going to be a ‘cleansing’ among the ranks of the Diário newspapers.

His solution was to pump enormous sums into the Jornal, turn it into a freebie newspaper and undercut the advertising market by price dumping, all in order to cut the Diário’s source of revenue, force job cuts among the journalists and eventually bankrupt the newspaper.

Not unexpectedly, the national parliament’s commission of enquiry, whose report records all these facts, concluded the opposite to the regional parliamentary commission. i.e. The Regional Government is trying and succeeding to scupper the independent press in Madeira.

Jardim and the PSD labeled the conclusion a 'colonial' interference in Madeira’s internal affairs.

Freedom of Speech 2

President Jardim uses the Justice system to silence freedom of speech. Lawyers and legal fees are paid by the Government and compensations are asked for Jardim and his henchmen. It’s a good racket. They have no expenses and pocket the compensations themselves.

Jardim regularly issues threats of taking people to court merely to silence dissent. At a party meeting prior to the 2000 elections, for instance, he ordered Government departments to take his political adversaries to Court at the minimum provocation: ‘I have instructed all Government Departments that they should immediately institute criminal proceedings at the merest hint of slander’.

Following the disaster of the 20^th of February 2010, he again urged Government departments to sue the ‘vultures’ who criticized the Government.

He himself regularly issues such threats directly, some of which have no leg to stand on and are not followed through. In any case, the Madeira Courts are filled the proceedings of Jardim and his henchmen.

Recently, a court judged in favor of the Garajau satirical newspaper in a case where the newspaper argued the Vice-President was using Government funding to criminally sue the paper for publishing facts that had nothing to do with his position or the Government. It was a blatant case of misuse of public funding to harass a newspaper. The ruling was overturned at lightning speed by the higher court in Lisbon. The Vice-Presidency’s handpicked lawyer was the leader of the Maoist MRPP Party, Garcia Pereira. The case has now been taken to the European Court of Human Rights.

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!