onlymadeleine

http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=32879

[LISBON, 12 April 2006] - In a verdict that shocked human rights and child advocacy organisations, the bar association and the country's leading analysts, Portugal's Supreme Court ruled last week that corporal punishment of children with mental disabilities in a children's institution is not illegal.

The first to raise his voice was Humberto Santos, the president of the Portuguese Association of Disabled Persons (APD), who told the press Wednesday that he found the Supreme Court's defence of physical punishment "disturbing and outrageous." Physical punishment is unacceptable in and of itself, "but is much more alarming and deeply repugnant when it is defended by a court of law," said Santos.

Late last year, a juvenile court in Setúbal, 40 km south of Lisbon, convicted a caregiver in a children's home for mistreating children in her care between 1990 and 2000, and sentenced her to 18 months in prison. The case, which revealed that she regularly slapped mentally disabled children and locked them into a dark pantry, caused a public commotion.

But in the decision it handed down on Tuesday, in response to an appeal filed by the caregiver, the Supreme Court considered slaps and spankings not only "legal" and "acceptable," but stated that failure to use these methods of punishment could even amount to "educational neglect." In addition, the Court said that locking children into dark rooms is a normal form of punishment "by any good parent."

One of the children frequently locked in the pantry was a seven-year-old boy suffering from a severe case of child psychosis. The caregiver also habitually tied another little boy to his bed, so that he would not cause disturbances.

The head of the APD said the Supreme Court decision was reminiscent of "the Middle Ages," and that the Portuguese justice system had committed "a grotesque violation of human rights" by setting a precedent so that "others who act in a similar fashion can continue their mistreatment." Santos added that because of the gravity of the case, it should be considered by the European Court of Human Rights.

Ana Filgueiras, head of the "Cidadãos do Mundo" Association, which works on behalf of vulnerable children, told IPS that "the effect of this outrageous ruling is that citizens will simply be unable to believe in a legal system that does not recognise a child's right not to be hit, even in a case in which there is an aggravating factor - that the child is disabled."

When she lived in Brazil, from 1975 to 1990, Filgueiras was a well-known activist with the Centre for the Defence of the Rights of Children and Adolescents, and won several battles against civilian, judicial and military authorities who were determined to "clean up" Rio de Janeiro of street children.

"That (victory) would be very difficult to repeat in Portugal, where civil society has been heavily influenced by the state," said the activist. "In any civilised country, a disgraceful ruling like this one would trigger such a wave of indignation that the Supreme Court would find it very difficult to justify what is unjustifiable."

Similar views were expressed by the bar association, which described the verdict as "dangerous." Carlos Antunes, a member of the bar association's human rights commission, said the legal decision is unacceptable and "extremely serious, because it sets an appalling precedent and transmits a very dangerous message, which did not come from just any court, but from the high court itself."

Antunes said the commission was awaiting the complete verdict in order to take a formal stance on the "very disturbing" decision that gives people a green light to engage in "criminal mistreatment." When asked whether the ruling set a legal precedent, the expert said he had "no doubt that in the future, this decision could be invoked in other cases, to play down the guilt of those who have mistreated children." The legal decision "is almost incomprehensible, and completely absurd," Antunes added.

Lawyer Pedro Biscaia, a member of the same commission, said "this opens a door to impunity for a series of behaviours that are absolutely avoidable in our society, where these days we have problems with aggression against and abuse of minors in institutions and youngsters from low-income areas."

For his part, Frederico Marques, with the Portuguese Association of Support for Victims (APAV), said the Supreme Court decision that corporal punishment of children with disabilities is legal and acceptable is "foolish."

Marques declined to comment on the ruling in concrete terms, since he was not entirely familiar with the case. But referring to the treatment received by the children at the hands of the caregiver, he said that APAV "repudiates this kind of behaviour." He also said "the verdict would seem quite senseless, in view of the climate of concern surrounding the question of the rights of children."

Government officials have not yet pronounced themselves on the verdict. Cornered by journalists, Minister of Social Welfare José Vieira da Silva merely stated that in the children's institutions that answer to his ministry, "physical punishment is strictly prohibited, with no exceptions."

Manuel Coutinho, of the governmental Children's Support Institute, declined to comment, explaining that he had not yet had access to the documents. He simply pointed out that "any adult who mistreats a child faces a possible prison sentence of one to five years."

The Supreme Court ruling also runs counter to the international legal obligations of Portugal, which ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child - legally binding on signatory countries - in September 1990.

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37797

PORTUGAL: Some Missing Children More Equal than Others
By Mario de Queiroz

LISBON, May 18 (IPS) - Never before has the Portuguese idiom "para o inglês ver" (literally: for the English to see), which means putting on a front to impress outsiders and ward off criticism, been so apt as today in Portugal, when the entire country has its attention riveted on the case of a four-year-old British girl who disappeared from a hotel two weeks ago.

The investigation into the May 3 disappearance of Madeleine McCann from a resort in Portugal's southern Algarve region has come up with few leads and little evidence, despite the unprecedented police effort in a country where kidnappings of local children have gone largely unnoticed.

The saying "para o inglês ver", remarkably pertinent with respect to this case, emerged in Brazil in 1831, when a law was passed prohibiting the importation of slaves under pressure from the British. However, the law was not enforced, and the slave trade continued at a brisk pace in Brazil and in Portugal's African colonies, thus giving rise to the idiom that referred to a law approved merely for the sake of appearance.

Madeleine went missing from her hotel room at the Ocean Club resort in the village of Praia da Luz, where she was sleeping along with her two-year-old twin siblings while their parents had dinner at a poolside tapas bar 40 metres away.

Since then, the British ambassador has gotten involved, and the Judicial Police, with the support of other police forces, has launched a search and investigation operation of a scope never before seen in Portugal, with130 senior officers and 800 beat officers reportedly assigned to the case.

In the last two weeks, the quiet former fishing village of Praia da Luz has been overrun by police officers and their dogs, as well as battalions of British and Portuguese journalists who have set up satellite dishes to broadcast around the clock.

The only suspect investigated so far is Robert Murat, a British resident of Praia da Luz. Also questioned, but as a witness, was Russian computer specialist Sergei Malinka, who helped design a web site for Murat.

Murat's home, near the Ocean Club, was searched by the police, who said they did not arrest him because not enough evidence was found, although tests are still being carried out on objects found in the dwelling.

The police have not been forthcoming with information, and much of the media coverage has been speculation.

The case has triggered a media feeding frenzy and has snowballed into an international cause, in which ordinary citizens, analysts, psychologists, doctors and criminologists have all offered their opinions and advice on radio and television programmes and web logs (blogs).

Some observers point out that Madeleine comes from a well-heeled British family (both of her parents are doctors), unlike so many Portuguese or immigrant children whose disappearance has drawn scant attention from the press.

Brazilian-Portuguese activist Ana Filgueiras told IPS that "the deployment of resources to find the missing girl is laudable, but it is regrettable that the same does not happen in the case of people who are less well-off. In Portugal we have never before seen a mobilisation of this magnitude."

Filgueiras founded the non-governmental Brazilian Centre for the Defence of Children's Rights (CBDDCA) in the 1970s, which drew attention to the killings of street children by military police in Rio de Janeiro.

"Across the globe, but especially in Africa, Latin America and Asia, the kidnapping of children is almost routine, but the phenomenon receives little coverage from media that are more interested in reporting each and every detail of the disappearance of a British girl, even though the case is insignificant in statistical terms," said Filgueiras.

According to UNICEF (the U.N. children's fund), 1.2 million children are trafficked every year around the world.

In Portugal, SOS Criança Desaparecida (SOS Missing Children) of the Instituto de Apoio à Crianza opened 31 new cases last year of missing children, involving 19 girls and 12 boys.

Filgueiras said that when Portuguese children go missing, "no TV station airs photos of the victims," but in Madeleine's case "we are watching a soap opera conceived of to boost ratings and readership to a maximum, by playing on people's feelings."

"If Madeleine were the daughter of parents from Africa, Eastern Europe or even Portugal, would the media have seized on it like this? Would there be so much news, and such an outpouring of concern?" asks someone writing at http://mrsleeves.blogspot.com, a Portuguese language blog.

Another blog, http://insolitos-da-gravata.blogspot.com/, notes that in the case of Joanna, a Portuguese girl who disappeared a year ago, "it took the police several days to start searching, while in this case it took just 30 minutes, and I can't avoid thinking, selfishly, that it was only because she was from a well-off English family, since any of us would have had to wait for 48 hours after the disappearance, as established by law."

The Judicial Police launched the investigation six hours after Kate McCann, Madeleine's mother, reported that her daughter was missing. "Record time in Portugal," said Carlos Anjos, president of the association of criminal investigators, who added, however, that six hours was enough time for the kidnappers to have sped across the border with Spain, just 150 kilometres away.

In his Thursday column in the Público newspaper, the former head of Portugal's bar association, José Miguel Júdice, said the enormous mobilisation was due to the fact that the little girl "is English, white, and the daughter of doctors."

In the cases of the 31 children who went missing last year in Portugal, "we didn't see helicopters or planes chartered by TV stations, or hundreds of police officers and trained dogs," he wrote.

The British and Portuguese media have not reacted this way on other occasions, "and they couldn't care less about reporting on the immense tragedy in (the Sudanese region of) Darfur, because doing so is infinitely more dangerous and brings less audience and readership than describing, live and direct, every single detail of the family drama" in Praia da Luz, Júdice maintained. (END/2007)

http://www.express.co.uk/news/view/6608



Thursday May 10,2007
By David Pilditch and Matt Drake in Praia da Luz

Comment Speech Bubble Have your say(7)

THE heartbroken parents of kidnapped Madeleine McCann yesterday revealed how they were desperately clinging on to the hope their daughter is still alive.

It came as police revealed CCTV footage had been handed to them of a possible sighting of Madeleine.

Images captured on cameras at a petrol station near the resort of Priaia da Luz show a woman with a girl fitting Madeleine’s description.

The woman was said to be urging the little girl to say "thank you" to staff but the child appeared reluctant.

It was not clear last night whether the petrol station footage is being shown to Madeleine’s parents.
ANGUISH: Gerry and Kate McCann


The Galp service station where the sighting was made is the first stop on the A22 motorway, which cuts across the Algarve towards Spain. The border is less than an hour away. It was not clear when the footage was taken.

As news of the possible breakthrough emerged, Gerry and Kate McCann said they were doing everything to remain positive – despite having to endure the agony of being shown an item of clothing belonging to a small child.
ì
Police have reconstructed the holiday routines of the McCanns and have come to the conclusion that the children were left alone on other occasions
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Portuguese newspaper Correio da Manha


A Portuguese police officer carried the evidence – which appeared to be a young girl’s top - to the apartment where the couple have been staying just yards from where Madeleine went missing.

Somehow it seemed to sum up the shambolic investigation local detectives have been operating.

The clothing had not been sealed in a forensic bag and police refused to confirm if it belonged to Madeleine.

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And in fresh heartache, the McCann's found themselves accused by the Portugese media of having routinely left their children alone during their holiday.

Citing police sources, the newspaper Correio da Manha said that the McCanns had left their children alone before during their holiday in the Algarve - a routine that, while normal at Praia da Luz, may have made it easy for her kidnapper to plan the abduction.

"Police have reconstructed the holiday routines of the McCanns and have come to the conclusion that the children were left alone on other occasions," the newspaper said.

It reported that the McCanns and their friends often dined by the pool while their children - Maddy, her twin siblings, and three other children - slept alone in the apartments.

According to the police, the paper said, the McCann's had not expressed any concern about leaving the children alone to staff at the resort.

The development came as sources revealed police had questioned two known German paedophiles who live in remote hills 20 miles from the holiday resort where Madeleine disappeared.

They are members of a large ex-pat German colony where the local authorities insist a number of young children have vanished.

One young German boy was reported missing five years ago from a campsite close to the coastline. He has never been found.

Members of the German community live in isolated homes far apart from their neighbours and concerns have been raised by local officials it may be the scene of a paedophile hideout.

Meanwhile more details emerged of the lax approach of the Portuguese authorities in dealing with child sex offenders.
Campaigners claim their indifference has turned the country into a paedophile’s paradise.

One Portuguese mother told how police failed to take any action after her 11-year-old son was snatched nine years ago.

Distraught Filomena Teixeira told how Dutch police officers later showed her photographs of son Rui tied up and gagged.

The images were confiscated after one international paedophile ring with links to Portugal was smashed.

Criticising the way the Portuguese Police handled the investigation into the disappearance of her son Mrs Teixeira said: "Police didn't do the same when Rui disappeared.

"There wasn't such a large-scale search as the one that's been organised for Madeleine. I know the pain and anguish Madeleine's parents must be going through."

Rui disappeared on March 4 1998 after stopping off at the driving school his mum worked at on his way back home from lessons.

There have been sightings of a boy fitting Rui's description in Paris and Switzerland with strangers.

His mother said: "The police never tell me anything. They promised me at one point that they would assign an officer to the case full-time but six months afterwards, that still hadn't happened.

"Initially detectives spent their time playing cat and mouse with me. Today I'm still in the same state of despair, waiting and hoping for news of my son.

"My life stopped the day he disappeared but the new bits of information that keep appearing give me the strength to go on."

added: "We felt promoting the area to Brits while Madeleine is missing would have been in bad taste."

It is believed Madeleine – who will be four on Saturday - is in the clutches of a vile network of perverts who set out to snatch a child to order.

But yesterday her family – who are devout Roman Catholics - insisted they will not give up hope. The family insist they will not return to Britain without Madeleine.

The couple said in a statement: “We are grateful to all of those currently taking part in the search for our daughter Madeleine.

“At present we are channelling all of our emotions and all of our efforts into the steps that are being taken to secure Madeleine’s safe return.

“We continue to remain positive.”

Madeleine’s uncle John McCann said her parents had gone from feeling “devastated and helpless” to being spurred on by the support they have received.

He added: “My brother’s a fantastic guy and Kate is a wonderful woman – they’re great for coming up with positive ideas and they’re mobilising contacts all over the place to get as much information and as many leads fed back.”

Another relative, aunt Philomena McCann, said the family had drawn up a missing poster to circulate globally in an e-mail appeal.

She said: "We need to get Madeleine back. We must find her. It's not an option to lose her.

"The whole family need her here. We all love children. Gerry and Kate have devoted their lives to helping others.

“They are doing everything they can to get her back. They are staying in Portugal until that happens.’

Yesterday the hunt for Madeleine was finally stepped up after the arrival of two Cracker-style experts from Britain.

They included Superintendent Graham Hill, of Surrey Police, who took part in the investigation into the murder of 13-year-old schoolgirl Milly Dowler.

An international website appeal was launched to find Madeleine and telephone numbers in Portugal and Britain were finally issued for any one with information on Madeleine’s disappearance to call.

The experts are from the Child Exploitation and online Protection Centre - which tackles international child sex abuse.

The posters were sent out after it was revealed that dozens of sex offenders who travelled to the Algarve in the month before the disappearance are being hunted by police in Portugal and Britain.

Portuguese detectives have drawn up a description of a British man whom they want to question over Madeleine’s disappearance.

A computer-generated artist’s impression of the suspect shows a white man, 5ft 8in tall, aged 35 to 40, with short, dark hair.

British detectives have compiled a list of every person on the sex offenders register who told police that they were travelling to the country.

The list was compiled by Leicestershire Police over the weekend from records kept by every police force.
Portuguese officers have also examined records at every hotel in Praia da Luz and the nearby town of Lagos to gather information on every visitor from the Midlands.

Portugal's Judicial Police, who are heading the investigation, are still working on the cases of seven missing children including little Rui.

Five of the 31 children reported missing last year in Portugal were under five.
add

Last night the grandmother of missing toddler – who like her siblings was a test-tube baby – Madeleine poured scorn on suggestions that Kate had been guilty of "neglecting" her child.

Speaking from her Woolton home, Susan, 61 said her daughter should not be blamed for the crime that has shocked Europe.

Susan said: ""Their children are IVF children, they waited a long time for them and they are so precious.

"Why would you think something like this would happen? You make a decision and think it’s OK.

"This time it wasn’t and Kate and Gerry have to live with that. That’s dreadful and they dont need pressure from people saying they made a mistake.

"They know this was a mistake. But it wasn’t child neglect, it wasn’t not caring for your children.

"Their children are the most importing things in their lives,

"I know how difficult it is when no information’s coming out, but we want Madeline on the front page because it’s the best hope we’ve got."

Madeleine will be four on Saturday but Susan added: "I haven’t thought about her birthday.

"I’m just hoping and praying were going to have her back before then."

In a further possible clue, it emerged last night that police probing Madeleine McCann’s disappeance want to speak to four men seen driving away from the tourist complex where the toddler was snatched.

A local shop owner reported the men to police after seeing them driving round the area a few days before the toddler disappeared - and shortly after her frantic parents first reported her missing.

She initially went to a police station in nearby Lagos on Saturday morning but detectives told her they were too busy to speak to her, local papers reported.

She was later interviewed by Portuguese CID officers leading the hunt for Maddy, reports said.

The name of the woman or her nationality has not been made public.

She has reportedly told police the car contained three or four men she feels was being driven "suspiciously".

She is said to have seen it near to Marina Lagos at the start of the week in which Maddy went missing - and again between 10.30 and 11pm next to the Mark Warner complex in Praia da Luz the night she vanished.

Police are said to be focussing their inquiries on the theory Maddy was snatched by a paedophile gang.

The woman’s shop is thought to be less in a retail centre less than 100 metres from the room where Maddy was allegedly abducted.

Last night Madeleine’s family called for an end to a war of words between experts in Britain and the Portueguese authorities over the chaotic investigation.

They said they wanted efforts to be concentrated on the search for Madeleine

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37797

PORTUGAL: Some Missing Children More Equal than Others
By Mario de Queiroz

LISBON, May 18 (IPS) - Never before has the Portuguese idiom "para o inglês ver" (literally: for the English to see), which means putting on a front to impress outsiders and ward off criticism, been so apt as today in Portugal, when the entire country has its attention riveted on the case of a four-year-old British girl who disappeared from a hotel two weeks ago.

The investigation into the May 3 disappearance of Madeleine McCann from a resort in Portugal's southern Algarve region has come up with few leads and little evidence, despite the unprecedented police effort in a country where kidnappings of local children have gone largely unnoticed.

The saying "para o inglês ver", remarkably pertinent with respect to this case, emerged in Brazil in 1831, when a law was passed prohibiting the importation of slaves under pressure from the British. However, the law was not enforced, and the slave trade continued at a brisk pace in Brazil and in Portugal's African colonies, thus giving rise to the idiom that referred to a law approved merely for the sake of appearance.

Madeleine went missing from her hotel room at the Ocean Club resort in the village of Praia da Luz, where she was sleeping along with her two-year-old twin siblings while their parents had dinner at a poolside tapas bar 40 metres away.

Since then, the British ambassador has gotten involved, and the Judicial Police, with the support of other police forces, has launched a search and investigation operation of a scope never before seen in Portugal, with130 senior officers and 800 beat officers reportedly assigned to the case.

In the last two weeks, the quiet former fishing village of Praia da Luz has been overrun by police officers and their dogs, as well as battalions of British and Portuguese journalists who have set up satellite dishes to broadcast around the clock.

The only suspect investigated so far is Robert Murat, a British resident of Praia da Luz. Also questioned, but as a witness, was Russian computer specialist Sergei Malinka, who helped design a web site for Murat.

Murat's home, near the Ocean Club, was searched by the police, who said they did not arrest him because not enough evidence was found, although tests are still being carried out on objects found in the dwelling.

The police have not been forthcoming with information, and much of the media coverage has been speculation.

The case has triggered a media feeding frenzy and has snowballed into an international cause, in which ordinary citizens, analysts, psychologists, doctors and criminologists have all offered their opinions and advice on radio and television programmes and web logs (blogs).

Some observers point out that Madeleine comes from a well-heeled British family (both of her parents are doctors), unlike so many Portuguese or immigrant children whose disappearance has drawn scant attention from the press.

Brazilian-Portuguese activist Ana Filgueiras told IPS that "the deployment of resources to find the missing girl is laudable, but it is regrettable that the same does not happen in the case of people who are less well-off. In Portugal we have never before seen a mobilisation of this magnitude."

Filgueiras founded the non-governmental Brazilian Centre for the Defence of Children's Rights (CBDDCA) in the 1970s, which drew attention to the killings of street children by military police in Rio de Janeiro.

"Across the globe, but especially in Africa, Latin America and Asia, the kidnapping of children is almost routine, but the phenomenon receives little coverage from media that are more interested in reporting each and every detail of the disappearance of a British girl, even though the case is insignificant in statistical terms," said Filgueiras.

According to UNICEF (the U.N. children's fund), 1.2 million children are trafficked every year around the world.

In Portugal, SOS Criança Desaparecida (SOS Missing Children) of the Instituto de Apoio à Crianza opened 31 new cases last year of missing children, involving 19 girls and 12 boys.

Filgueiras said that when Portuguese children go missing, "no TV station airs photos of the victims," but in Madeleine's case "we are watching a soap opera conceived of to boost ratings and readership to a maximum, by playing on people's feelings."

"If Madeleine were the daughter of parents from Africa, Eastern Europe or even Portugal, would the media have seized on it like this? Would there be so much news, and such an outpouring of concern?" asks someone writing at http://mrsleeves.blogspot.com, a Portuguese language blog.

Another blog, http://insolitos-da-gravata.blogspot.com/, notes that in the case of Joanna, a Portuguese girl who disappeared a year ago, "it took the police several days to start searching, while in this case it took just 30 minutes, and I can't avoid thinking, selfishly, that it was only because she was from a well-off English family, since any of us would have had to wait for 48 hours after the disappearance, as established by law."

The Judicial Police launched the investigation six hours after Kate McCann, Madeleine's mother, reported that her daughter was missing. "Record time in Portugal," said Carlos Anjos, president of the association of criminal investigators, who added, however, that six hours was enough time for the kidnappers to have sped across the border with Spain, just 150 kilometres away.

In his Thursday column in the Público newspaper, the former head of Portugal's bar association, José Miguel Júdice, said the enormous mobilisation was due to the fact that the little girl "is English, white, and the daughter of doctors."

In the cases of the 31 children who went missing last year in Portugal, "we didn't see helicopters or planes chartered by TV stations, or hundreds of police officers and trained dogs," he wrote.

The British and Portuguese media have not reacted this way on other occasions, "and they couldn't care less about reporting on the immense tragedy in (the Sudanese region of) Darfur, because doing so is infinitely more dangerous and brings less audience and readership than describing, live and direct, every single detail of the family drama" in Praia da Luz, Júdice maintained. (END/2007)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2948766.stm

Portugal rocked by child sex scandal
Portuguese President Jorge Sampaio
President spoke of national shame
Allegations that a child sex ring has been operating out of state-run children's homes in Portugal for decades has prompted intervention by President Jorge Sampaio.

He has said he will do everything in his power to ensure a full investigation is carried out.

"The impunity which for decades on end has made this case a shame for all of us will finally end," President Sampaio said.

The scandal emerged last November but escalated last week with the arrests of the spokesman of the main opposition Socialist party and of a former Portuguese ambassador to South Africa.

The impunity which for decades on end has made this case a shame for all of us will finally end
President Jorge Sampaio

The developments sparked an outcry in Portugal, particularly when it was reported that a former president and several government ministers, as well as the police, knew of the allegations as far back as the early 1980s but failed to take action.

"Faced with the horror that so many children, who were entrusted to us to be educated and cared for, were victimised it is necessary to declare here that the president is certain that the guilty will be severely punished," President Sampaio said in a speech.

The latest high-profile arrests are of men publicly accused of sex abuse by former children of Casa Pia, Portugal's largest network of homes for troubled children.

Casa Pia first made the headlines following allegations that an employee at the institution allegedly helped wealthy child molesters to meet young boys in his care for over two decades.

High-profile suspects

The employee, a driver at the institution, was arrested and is in custody awaiting trial.

Since then a popular game show host, a well-known doctor, a lawyer and a former director of Casa Pia have also been arrested and are also in custody pending trial.

Police are due to question the television personality on Friday amid widespread media speculation that more arrests of prominent people are imminent.

Staff at the network of 10 children's homes, which currently has 4,600 children in its care, have said they believe more than 100 boys and girls currently with them may have been sexually abused.

Many of those suspected of having been victimised by staff at the 200-year-old institution are deaf-mutes.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/child/story/0 ... 01,00.html

Portugal's elite linked to paedophile ring


Abuse was reportedly going on at Lisbon orphanage for 20 years

Giles Tremlett in Lisbon
Wednesday November 27, 2002
The Guardian

A scandal over a paedophile ring run from a state orphanage gripped Portugal yesterday as it threatened to engulf diplomats, media personalities and senior politicians.

Photographs of unnamed senior government officials with young boys from Lisbon's Casa Pia orphanage were among the evidence reportedly available to police after they arrested a former orphanage employee called Carlos Silvino.

A number of former residents, and the mother of one boy who is still there, have denounced sexual attacks on children at what is known as Lisbon's most famous orphanage.

Mr Silvino, it was claimed, abused children himself and procured boys for a powerful group of clients.

He has publicly denied the allegations and was expected to repeat that denial at a closed-door bail hearing in Lisbon yesterday.

What has most shocked the Portuguese have been the revelations that systematic sexual abuse of children at the home had allegedly been going on for more than 20 years and had been known to police and other authorities for most of that time.

A former president, General Ramalho Eanes, was allegedly among those who knew about abuse at the home but failed to stop it.

The identity of the mysterious group of powerful paedophiles remained a secret yesterday, with only one person prepared to admit she knew at least some of the names.

Former secretary of state for families, Teresa Costa Macedo, said she had sent a dossier containing photographs and testimonies from children to the police 20 years ago but they had done nothing about it, while she was subjected to a campaign of threats.

"He [Silvino] was just one element in a huge paedophile network that involved important people in our country," Mrs Costa Macedo explained in a newspaper interview. "It wasn't just him. He was a procurer of children for well-known people who range from diplomats and politicians to people linked to the media."

The material sent to the police, which yesterday appeared to have been lost, was damning proof of the activities of the paedophile ring, Mrs Costa Macedo said.

"There are photographs, an account of the methods used to spirit children out of the orphanage and testimonies of a number of children," she explained.

Mrs Costa Macedo said that many of the photographs were found at the house of a Portuguese diplomat in the town of Estoril, 20 miles from Lisbon. Four children who had gone missing from the orphanage were discovered at the house, where they had spent several days allegedly under lock and key.

President Eanes was introduced to five boys who told him of the abuse occurring at the orphanage in 1980 but failed to act on it, according to Mrs Costa Macedo.

There was no suggestion that General Eanes, a popular and respected figure who did not comment on the allegations yesterday, was involved in the paedophile ring.

Portuguese police insisted yesterday they had no record of the documents sent to them by Mrs Costa Macedo.

She said she had been the target of a campaign of intimidation to make her stop investigating the case.

"I received anonymous threats, by phone and post. They said they would kill me, flay me and a lot of other things," she said.

That campaign had started again yesterday, she said, with threatening phone calls made to her home.

Portugal has increasingly been under the scrutiny of anti-paedophile groups who have denounced its lax laws and uninterested courts for creating a paedophiles' paradise in Europe.

Belgian and Dutch paedophile groups are reported to have operated in Portugal, with foreigners travelling to the island of Madeira to seek out young children.

Investigators from the Swiss-based Innocence in Danger group, which claims children regularly disappear from the poorer streets of Portuguese towns and cities, say they too have been harassed and threatened.

Mr Silvino claimed his accusers were making up their allegations. "It is all lies," he said.

The orphanage's director and deputy director were sacked on Monday as the government pledged to clear up the case as soon as possible.

Alhough every case is different, experts here who've studied the phenomenon of mothers involved in their children's deaths say there are certain factors usually present - none of which seem outwardly to apply here.

''This case smells completely unfamiliar,'' says Michelle Oberman, a law professor at Santa Clara University and author of ''Mothers Who Kill Their Children.''



''In almost all cases, there are signs of a long-term history of mental distress, in conjunction with profound social isolation - a situation where there's no one safe to talk to,'' says Oberman. Also, there's often a previous history of child abuse.

Those characteristics run totally counter to the image we've seen of Kate McCann: a British doctor, like her husband, with 2-year-old twins in addition to Madeleine, and seemingly a large network of family and friends. The couple, who were vacationing in southern Portugal when the 4-year-old disappeared, have spearheaded an intense campaign over the last four months on behalf of their child, meeting with the pope and enlisting help from celebrities like J.K. Rowling and soccer star David Beckham.

In previous high-profile investigations, suspicion has often fallen on the mother - sometimes justifiably, and sometimes tragically, not so.

Susan Smith reported to police in 1994 that she'd been carjacked by a man who drove off with her sons still in the car. Her story provoked a wave of national sympathy, until nine days later when she confessed she'd let her car roll into a lake, drowning her boys.

A decade earlier in Australia, Lindy Chamberlain served four years in prison after being convicted of murdering her baby daughter in 1982. She was cleared when evidence emerged supporting her claim that a dingo had grabbed and killed the child. (''The Dingo Is Innocent'' was a common bumper sticker during her trial.)

''There have been a number of wrongful arrests and convictions of family members in such cases,'' says Drizin, who is legal director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern's law school. He also notes the case of JonBenet Ramsey, the 6-year-old beauty contestant whose killing is still unsolved. A cloud long hung over her parents, John and Patsy. ''Their names were dragged through the mud for years, yet no charges were ever brought against them,'' says Drizin. Patsy Ramsey died in 2006 of cancer.

In the McCann case, the family says police told Kate McCann they'd found blood traces in the couple's car - rented 25 days after Madeleine disappeared. They also suggested Madeleine may have been killed accidentally, and offered McCann a plea deal, the family said.

That sounds odd to Lita Linzer Schwartz, a professor emeritus of psychology and women's studies at Penn State, and co-author of ''Endangered Children.''

''After 25 days the child would have been spilling blood?'' she asked. ''It seems rather strange.''

''From what I have seen and heard in the news, this doesn't follow the typical kinds of patterns one sees'' in cases where parents are guilty, she says.

''The truth of the matter is that we simply don't have enough information to be able to come up with a theory,'' Schwartz says. ''Was there something going on we don't know about? Are police sitting on information?''

''It does seem more likely that a third party came in,'' she says. ''But, anything's possible.''

AP-WS-09-07-07 1742EDT

http://www.newspress.com/Top/Article/ar ... 1564434379

It would not be the first time that a child taken from Portugal has ended up in the grip of a paedophile ring. In 1998, an 11-year-old boy called Rui Pedro Mendonça vanished while walking home from school in the northern Portuguese town Lousada. A month later, hopes were raised when he was sighted with a middle-aged man in Disneyland in Paris. Then three years later, his mother’s worst fears were realised.

Horrific images of Rui Pedro being sexually abused were reportedly uncovered during an international police operation that cracked a global paedophile network. More than 200 paedophiles in 13 countries had exchanged more than 750,000 images of children through a private internet club called Wonderland.

Analysis showed that 1,236 children had been subjected to abuse that officers described as “unimaginable”. Some were babies, raped by their abusers. Others were sexually abused live, to order, online. Officers described weeping as they catalogued the pictures and being haunted for years afterwards.

The Portuguese boy’s mother, Filomena Teixera, flew to Switzerland to view the pictures and was apparently able to identify her son. But he has never been found. The trail has gone cold and investigators fear that may have been murdered to cover up the abuse. Now the disappearance of Madeleine has brought those agonising memories flooding back.

“When I saw the news about the disappearance of the English girl, I was terrified,” Ms Teixera told the 24 Horas newspaper. “I immediately thought of my son, even though the cases are different. And I thought of Madeleine’s parents, the anguish they are suffering.”

Ms Teixera said she has had psychiatric treatment for 8 hours a day for the past four years, since her father died. She still refuses to believe that her son, who would now be 20 years old, could have died.

“When I stop believing he is alive, I lose all my strength,” she said. “My brain doesn’t allow me to think the he is dead.”

Six other children are listed as having disappeared in Portugal. Not all are suspected of having been snatched by paedophiles, but one case in particular has drawn attention for its startling similarities. Rui Pereira was 13 years old when he vanished in 1999 -- just a few months after Rui Pedro -- from the northern town of Famalicão. There was later a reported sighting of the boy in Switzerland, in the company of two Italians.

His mother, Laurinda Meira, also continues to believe he is alive. “He must be tall,” she said two months ago, when he should have been celebrating his 22nd birthday. “I would like to open the door one day and find him there.”

All his clothes and possessions remain in the exactly the same place as they were when he vanished from their lives. “I am sure that he is alive, but not totally well” she told Portuguese daily, Journal de Notícias. “He could be into drugs, or prostitution or as a slave, we just don’t know.”

Portuguese police travelled to Switzerland in 2003 to check through database of paedophile images, but they have so far drawn a blank. The family has strongly criticised the Portuguese authorities, saying that the police did little to find their so. Supporters also mounted street protests when the courts tried to close the case.

Child protection campaigners have alleged that a culture of corruption and complacency in Portugal is allowing such kidnappings to continue unabated. The founder of the Switzerland-based group Innocence in Danger has said she had tried to set up an office in Portugal but it gave up because of the reluctance of the authorities.

Homayra Sellier said after Madeleine's dissappearance last week that Portugal is a country in which “the corruption has gone so high that there's nothing we can do”.

“The fact that the girl (Madeleine) was kidnapped from her bed shows how bad things are.”


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 769019.ece

The founder of the Swiss-based group Innocence in Danger, which has offices across Europe and America, said it had tried but failed to work with Portuguese authorities. Its president, Homayra Sellier, said Portugal was a country where "the corruption has gone so high that there's nothing we can do".

The group tried to set up an office there between 2002 and 2004, but Miss Sellier said: "I stopped it because I thought I couldn't fight against a country where the people do not want to know the truth."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... ddy224.xml

http://www.guardian.co.uk/child/story/0 ... 33,00.html


The Guardian


Portugal's highest-profile trial for years began at a Lisbon court yesterday with a leading television presenter, a former ambassador and five others accused of involvement in a child prostitution ring which allegedly abused orphanage children over a period of 20 years.
Carlos Cruz, 62, the chat show host known as Mr Television, arrived at the court looking relaxed as his lawyer warned about the failings of Portugal's judicial system.

"Normally trials produce justice in Portugal," Ricardo Sá Fernandes, told the state news agency, Lusa. "But sometimes they do not."

Mr Cruz faced six charges of sexually abusing or having sex with underage boys from the 224-year-old Casa Pia network of orphanages and schools which looks after 4,500 children.

"I want, and all Portuguese want, that the truth be found in a rapid manner. I've never lied," Mr Cruz said.

Jorge Ritto, 69, a former Portuguese ambassador, faced nine charges of sexually abusing children and two of procuring.

Among the defendants is Manuel Abrantes, a former deputy director at Casa Pia, who faces 51 charges of abuse and child prostitution crimes.

Carlos Silvino, a Casa Pia driver, was allegedly at the centre of the ring, hiring out boys under 14 to people from the social and showbusiness elite.

Mr Silvino, accused of 669 acts of abuse, arrived at court with an armed escort and wearing a bulletproof vest as local media reported death threats against him.

Psychiatrists said yesterday that the 32 alleged victims who would give evidence, some still under 16 years, would be under extreme pressure.

Counsellors appointed by the authorities said they had uncovered 130 cases of abuse at the main Casa Pia home in Lisbon.

The judge said yesterday the case may be transferred to a courthouse better able to deal with a trial with a 13,000-page case file that would last several months and involve about 800 witness.

Paulo Pedroso, a former government minister, against whom charges were dropped after he had spent four months on remand, was not in court. He has suggested he may sue those who accused him while his Socialist party has claimed the charges against him were politically motivated.

The case has shocked Portugal, making some people aware of paedophilia for the first time and throwing into question the way governments have run orphanages.

But its shockwaves have gone further. The police were first informed of abuse at Casa Pia in 1982, while a series of high-profile politicians, including Antonio Ramalho Eanes, a former president, have known about the allegations for 20 years, according to Teresa Costa Macedo, a former secretary of state for families.

Leaks from the investigation have put the judiciary, police and journalists under the microscope.

The attorney-general was forced to state publicly earlier this year that the president, Jorge Sampaio, was not being investigated after the press discovered that an anonymous letter naming him had been included in the evidence. Mr Sampaio made a national television address last year, calling the affair a national disgrace and urging people to trust the legal system.

Joao Correia, vice-president of the bar association, said media coverage and breaches of judicial secrecy had damaged public confidence.

Each conviction for an act of child sex abuse carries a jail term of up to eight years. But the maximum prison term in Portugal is 25 years.

Arrest of Portugal’s elite in paedophile scandal
By Paul Mitchell
18 June 2003
Use this version to print | Send this link by email | Email the author

A scandal concerning the abuse of children in care homes has led to the arrest of several members of Portugal’s social and political elite. The arrests include an ex-Portuguese ambassador, a TV games show host and the employment minister in the former Socialist Party government. A minister in the current Social Democratic Party/Peoples Party coalition government has also been implicated.

The government has used the scandal to attack the opposition and justify the widespread use of phone tapping, long periods of detention and other repressive measures.

The allegations are that state-run care homes were a target for wealthy and influential paedophiles whose activities were covered up for decades by successive Portuguese governments. Since the scandal erupted the Ministry of Labour and Social Security has confirmed that 128 girls and boys who were mainly deaf-mutes at the care homes were victims of sexual abuse.

Portugal’s sexual abuse scandal has been compared to the Dutroux affair in Belgium [1]. Diario de Noticias has warned that if a paedophile “mafia network ... really exists, it is Portuguese democracy which is danger.”

According to Diario de Noticias, Portugal is “reeling from a far-reaching crisis of values and identity.” The author Antonio Mega Ferreira lamented in the weekly Visão, “I can’t recall, during the part 25 years of democracy, ever having felt we were going through such a disturbing, frail, demoralising, upsetting time as we are going through now.”

The scandal first made the headlines last November after dozens of children from Casa Pia care homes publicly accused Jorge Ritto, a former Portuguese ambassador to South Africa, of child abuse.

Casa Pia had the reputation as one of the oldest and most respected state institutions in Portugal. It was founded by Diogo Inácio de Pina Manique, Police Superintendent of Lisbon, following the social instability caused by the devastating earthquake of 1755. Casa Pia prided itself as “the very first establishment of popular education of the Country and the most significant institution of assistance to minors.” The care homes currently accommodate 4,500 orphaned children.

Once the allegations became public Teresa Costa Macedo, a former Secretary of State for the Family, revealed that she knew about them whilst she was a minister in the early 1980s and that very influential people were involved. In 1982, she claimed she told General Antonio Ramalho Eanes, Portuguese President from 1976-1986, about the allegations.

Following the arrest last November of Carlos Silvino, a former resident at a Casa Pia home who then became a driver and gardener for the institution, Costa Macedo warned that Silvino “was just one element in a huge paedophile network that involved important people in our country... It wasn’t just him. He was a procurer of children for well-known people who range from diplomats and politicians to people linked to the media.”

Justifying her silence about the allegations for over 20 years Costa Macedo said, “I received anonymous threats, by phone and post. They said they would kill me, flay me and a lot of other things.”

Costa Macedo claims that whilst a minister she handed police “photographs, an account of the methods used to spirit children out of the orphanage and testimonies of a number of children.” Press reports suggest many of the photographs were found at Jorge Ritto’s house. It is also alleged that when investigators visited Ritto’s house they found four children locked up who had been missing from Casa Pia for several days.

Ritto retired last year from his position as Portuguese representative to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation in Paris. The Visão magazine reported in March that Ritto was transferred from his job as consul in Stuttgart in 1970 after German officials complained about an incident with a young boy in a park. Ritto, who is now in police custody, has denied all the allegations of child abuse and accused the media of conducting a “lynching.”

The Portuguese Attorney General’s Office has since confirmed it began investigations into the Ritto affair in 1982, but abandoned them in 1987 for lack of evidence. Files relating to the case were destroyed in 1993.

After the paedophile allegations were first published, Prime Minister Jose Manuel Durao Barroso ordered an investigation. Jorge Sampaio, the President and a Socialist Party leader, proclaimed, “The impunity which for decades on end has made this case a shame for us all will finally end ... Faced with the horror that so many children, who were entrusted to us to be educated and cared for, were victimised it is necessary to declare here that the guilty will be severely punished.”

He implored Portuguese citizens to trust the justice system saying, “We have to hope that our institutions work.”

However, a spokeswoman from Portugal’s Innocence in Danger charity said the organisation had been warning about child abuse for years in Portugal but there had been a virtual “media blackout”.

“It is no good President Sampaio and Parliament sounding off about the problem now and appearing to be knights in shining armour,” the spokeswoman continued. “They, like the police, must have known about the widespread abuse of children in Portuguese institutions for years. They have been warned often enough by charities such as ours but for reasons best known to themselves have remained silent. Their recent acts of breast-beating are outright hypocrisy... Time and time again complaint files are lost, witnesses are seldom interviewed and suspects let off the hook.”

Since Ritto’s arrest, the police have also detained the popular TV games show host Carloz Cruz, known as “Mr Television”, and Joao Diniz, a high society doctor. In April, they arrested Manuel Abrantes, a former assistant director of Casa Pia.

More controversially, in May, the police arrested Paulo Pedroso, Socialist Party MP and Labour and Training Minister from 1999 to 2001 with responsibility for the Casa Pia homes. Pedroso asked parliament to lift his parliamentary immunity so that police could question him about 15 cases of child sexual abuse that allegedly occurred whilst he was minister. Pedroso claims he is a victim of a witch-hunt saying, “I have never participated in any act of paedophilia or any similar act.”

The Socialist Party leader Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues, who is a close personal friend of Pedroso, also offered to undergo police questioning after “he had learned of plans to implicate him in the scandal”. The weekly paper Expresso published a report on May 25 from four children who said they saw Ferro Rodrigues at locations where sexual abuse was taking place. The paper said there was no evidence he was personally involved and the Attorney General José Souto de Moura insists he is not a suspect. Ferro Rodrigues says he will take legal action against those defaming him. “I want it to be clear: our fight will be serene but determined and it is and will only be directed at those who are responsible for this defamation, whatever their objective is.”

As a result of police tapping Pedroso’s mobile phone calls Luis Valente de Oliveira, public works minister in the current government, has also been questioned. Valente de Oliveira resigned in April citing health reasons.

When Durao Barroso came to power in March 2002, he promised to bring “life and honour” back to Portugal’s public institutions after a series of fraud cases. Valente de Oliveira’s association with the paedophile allegations following the embezzlement trial of Portuguese Defence Minister Paulo Portas has made the promise worthless.

Whatever the truth of the child abuse allegations is, the government has used the Casa Pia scandal to justify the widespread tapping of phone calls by the police and the detention of suspects for up to 12 months without charge. There are nearly 300 pages of transcripts of tapped calls made by Socialist leaders, including Ferro Rodrigues. Under Portuguese law the police can tap anyone’s phone if they believe it will help solve a serious crime and providing they have special permission from a judge. The Attorney General said, “I myself could be [tapped] whether or not I was under suspicion, if the conversation would help discover the truth.”

Portugal is one of the poorest countries in Europe with the lowest wage rates and high employment. The country is officially in recession and is threatened by the lower costs offered by the eastward expansion of the European Union into the former Eastern bloc countries. Durao Barroso is pushing ahead with a programme of privatisation and social changes that are provoking widespread opposition. A General Strike on December 10 last year brought the country to a standstill. The strike was called in response to planned labour laws including curbing the right to strike, making dismissals easier, increasing the working week, reducing overtime payment and classifying holidays as a bonus. The use of phone taps, detention and other repressive measures will be vital to defeat any political rebellion against the government.

1] Marc Dutroux, a notorious paedophile and child murderer is still in jail awaiting trial years after his arrest in 1996. The Dutroux case, which uncovered a sordid picture of judicial and political corruption, implicated the highest levels of Belgian society. The general outrage with the political system this produced found its expression in a series of mass “white marches” (so-called because of the white ribbons participants wore in memory of Dutroux’s victims).
Arrest of Portugal’s elite in paedophile scandal
By Paul Mitchell
18 June 2003
Use this version to print | Send this link by email | Email the author

A scandal concerning the abuse of children in care homes has led to the arrest of several members of Portugal’s social and political elite. The arrests include an ex-Portuguese ambassador, a TV games show host and the employment minister in the former Socialist Party government. A minister in the current Social Democratic Party/Peoples Party coalition government has also been implicated.

The government has used the scandal to attack the opposition and justify the widespread use of phone tapping, long periods of detention and other repressive measures.

The allegations are that state-run care homes were a target for wealthy and influential paedophiles whose activities were covered up for decades by successive Portuguese governments. Since the scandal erupted the Ministry of Labour and Social Security has confirmed that 128 girls and boys who were mainly deaf-mutes at the care homes were victims of sexual abuse.

Portugal’s sexual abuse scandal has been compared to the Dutroux affair in Belgium [1]. Diario de Noticias has warned that if a paedophile “mafia network ... really exists, it is Portuguese democracy which is danger.”

According to Diario de Noticias, Portugal is “reeling from a far-reaching crisis of values and identity.” The author Antonio Mega Ferreira lamented in the weekly Visão, “I can’t recall, during the part 25 years of democracy, ever having felt we were going through such a disturbing, frail, demoralising, upsetting time as we are going through now.”

The scandal first made the headlines last November after dozens of children from Casa Pia care homes publicly accused Jorge Ritto, a former Portuguese ambassador to South Africa, of child abuse.

Casa Pia had the reputation as one of the oldest and most respected state institutions in Portugal. It was founded by Diogo Inácio de Pina Manique, Police Superintendent of Lisbon, following the social instability caused by the devastating earthquake of 1755. Casa Pia prided itself as “the very first establishment of popular education of the Country and the most significant institution of assistance to minors.” The care homes currently accommodate 4,500 orphaned children.

Once the allegations became public Teresa Costa Macedo, a former Secretary of State for the Family, revealed that she knew about them whilst she was a minister in the early 1980s and that very influential people were involved. In 1982, she claimed she told General Antonio Ramalho Eanes, Portuguese President from 1976-1986, about the allegations.

Following the arrest last November of Carlos Silvino, a former resident at a Casa Pia home who then became a driver and gardener for the institution, Costa Macedo warned that Silvino “was just one element in a huge paedophile network that involved important people in our country... It wasn’t just him. He was a procurer of children for well-known people who range from diplomats and politicians to people linked to the media.”

Justifying her silence about the allegations for over 20 years Costa Macedo said, “I received anonymous threats, by phone and post. They said they would kill me, flay me and a lot of other things.”

Costa Macedo claims that whilst a minister she handed police “photographs, an account of the methods used to spirit children out of the orphanage and testimonies of a number of children.” Press reports suggest many of the photographs were found at Jorge Ritto’s house. It is also alleged that when investigators visited Ritto’s house they found four children locked up who had been missing from Casa Pia for several days.

Ritto retired last year from his position as Portuguese representative to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation in Paris. The Visão magazine reported in March that Ritto was transferred from his job as consul in Stuttgart in 1970 after German officials complained about an incident with a young boy in a park. Ritto, who is now in police custody, has denied all the allegations of child abuse and accused the media of conducting a “lynching.”

The Portuguese Attorney General’s Office has since confirmed it began investigations into the Ritto affair in 1982, but abandoned them in 1987 for lack of evidence. Files relating to the case were destroyed in 1993.

After the paedophile allegations were first published, Prime Minister Jose Manuel Durao Barroso ordered an investigation. Jorge Sampaio, the President and a Socialist Party leader, proclaimed, “The impunity which for decades on end has made this case a shame for us all will finally end ... Faced with the horror that so many children, who were entrusted to us to be educated and cared for, were victimised it is necessary to declare here that the guilty will be severely punished.”

He implored Portuguese citizens to trust the justice system saying, “We have to hope that our institutions work.”

However, a spokeswoman from Portugal’s Innocence in Danger charity said the organisation had been warning about child abuse for years in Portugal but there had been a virtual “media blackout”.

“It is no good President Sampaio and Parliament sounding off about the problem now and appearing to be knights in shining armour,” the spokeswoman continued. “They, like the police, must have known about the widespread abuse of children in Portuguese institutions for years. They have been warned often enough by charities such as ours but for reasons best known to themselves have remained silent. Their recent acts of breast-beating are outright hypocrisy... Time and time again complaint files are lost, witnesses are seldom interviewed and suspects let off the hook.”

Since Ritto’s arrest, the police have also detained the popular TV games show host Carloz Cruz, known as “Mr Television”, and Joao Diniz, a high society doctor. In April, they arrested Manuel Abrantes, a former assistant director of Casa Pia.

More controversially, in May, the police arrested Paulo Pedroso, Socialist Party MP and Labour and Training Minister from 1999 to 2001 with responsibility for the Casa Pia homes. Pedroso asked parliament to lift his parliamentary immunity so that police could question him about 15 cases of child sexual abuse that allegedly occurred whilst he was minister. Pedroso claims he is a victim of a witch-hunt saying, “I have never participated in any act of paedophilia or any similar act.”

The Socialist Party leader Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues, who is a close personal friend of Pedroso, also offered to undergo police questioning after “he had learned of plans to implicate him in the scandal”. The weekly paper Expresso published a report on May 25 from four children who said they saw Ferro Rodrigues at locations where sexual abuse was taking place. The paper said there was no evidence he was personally involved and the Attorney General José Souto de Moura insists he is not a suspect. Ferro Rodrigues says he will take legal action against those defaming him. “I want it to be clear: our fight will be serene but determined and it is and will only be directed at those who are responsible for this defamation, whatever their objective is.”

As a result of police tapping Pedroso’s mobile phone calls Luis Valente de Oliveira, public works minister in the current government, has also been questioned. Valente de Oliveira resigned in April citing health reasons.

When Durao Barroso came to power in March 2002, he promised to bring “life and honour” back to Portugal’s public institutions after a series of fraud cases. Valente de Oliveira’s association with the paedophile allegations following the embezzlement trial of Portuguese Defence Minister Paulo Portas has made the promise worthless.

Whatever the truth of the child abuse allegations is, the government has used the Casa Pia scandal to justify the widespread tapping of phone calls by the police and the detention of suspects for up to 12 months without charge. There are nearly 300 pages of transcripts of tapped calls made by Socialist leaders, including Ferro Rodrigues. Under Portuguese law the police can tap anyone’s phone if they believe it will help solve a serious crime and providing they have special permission from a judge. The Attorney General said, “I myself could be [tapped] whether or not I was under suspicion, if the conversation would help discover the truth.”

Portugal is one of the poorest countries in Europe with the lowest wage rates and high employment. The country is officially in recession and is threatened by the lower costs offered by the eastward expansion of the European Union into the former Eastern bloc countries. Durao Barroso is pushing ahead with a programme of privatisation and social changes that are provoking widespread opposition. A General Strike on December 10 last year brought the country to a standstill. The strike was called in response to planned labour laws including curbing the right to strike, making dismissals easier, increasing the working week, reducing overtime payment and classifying holidays as a bonus. The use of phone taps, detention and other repressive measures will be vital to defeat any political rebellion against the government.

1] Marc Dutroux, a notorious paedophile and child murderer is still in jail awaiting trial years after his arrest in 1996. The Dutroux case, which uncovered a sordid picture of judicial and political corruption, implicated the highest levels of Belgian society. The general outrage with the political system this produced found its expression in a series of mass “white marches” (so-called because of the white ribbons participants wore in memory of Dutroux’s victims).

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/jun20 ... -j18.shtml

Portugal

Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005
Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor
March 8, 2006


Portugal, with a population of approximately 10.4 million, is a constitutional democracy with a president, a prime minister, and a parliament elected in multiparty elections. National parliamentary elections on February 20 were free and fair. The civilian authorities generally maintained effective control of the security forces.

The government generally respected the human rights of its citizens; however, the following human rights problems were reported:


police and prison guards beat and abused detainees
poor prison conditions
lengthy pretrial and preventive detention
trafficking in persons, foreign laborers and women
RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

Section 1 Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including Freedom From:

a. Arbitrary or Unlawful Deprivation of Life


There were no reports that the government or its agents committed arbitrary or unlawful killings; however, security forces killed eight persons during the year. Most of the killings took place during the pursuit of suspects, either on foot or in car chases, after the suspects failed to obey repeated verbal orders by security forces. One killing occurred inside a police station when a prisoner attempted to escape through a bathroom window. The eight killings were under investigation by the government's Inspectorate General of Internal Administration (IGAI).


b. Disappearance


There were no reports of politically motivated disappearances.


c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading
Treatment or Punishment


The law prohibits such practices; however, there were credible reports of disproportionate use of force by police and of mistreatment and other forms of abuse by prison guards against detainees.


During the year the IGAI investigated new reports of mistreatment and abuse by police and prison guards (see section 1.d.).


An internal prison inquiry into the beating of Albino Libânio in 2003 found that he had sustained multiple injuries from an assault that may have amounted to torture. A criminal investigation into the matter was pending, and disciplinary proceedings against several prison officers were ongoing.

In December a trial began of three police officers who were accused of assault in 1995.

Prison and Detention Center Conditions


Prison conditions remained poor, and guards continued to mistreat prisoners. Other problems included overcrowding, inadequate facilities, poor health conditions, and violence among inmates.


Most of the guidelines and legislative proposals the government adopted in 2004 to reform the prison system had not been put in practice. However, some improvements were made during the year, including the opening of several new detention facilities, a decrease in prison overcrowding, an increase in personnel training and implementation of a new prison administration program in the Santa Cruz do Bispo Prison.


Approximately 30 percent of the prison population had hepatitis B or C, and 14 percent were HIV-positive. According to the Ministry of Justice, 55 persons died in prisons during the first 6 months of the year, 49 of them from unspecified illnesses. Six were reported as suicides. One-third of the total deaths occurred while under preventive detention. The government started a new AIDS prevention and treatment program in two major prisons on a three-year trial basis.


Although there was a youth prison in Leiria, at times juveniles were held with adults elsewhere in the prison system. Pretrial detainees were held with convicted criminals.


The government permitted visits by independent human rights observers during the year.


d. Arbitrary Arrest or Detention


The law prohibits arbitrary arrest and detention, and the government generally observed these prohibitions.


Role of the Police and Security Apparatus


There were approximately 50 thousand law enforcement officials, including police and prison guards. The Ministries of Justice and Internal Administration are primarily responsible for internal security. The Republican National Guard (GNR) has jurisdiction outside cities, and the Public Security Police (PSP) has jurisdiction in cities. The Aliens and Borders Service (SEF) has jurisdiction on immigration and border issues.


Some members of the security forces committed a number of human rights abuses. In 2004 the IGAI received 276 complaints of human rights abuses. The majority of the complaints were against the PSP and the GNR, 166 and 94 respectively. The complaints included injuries or threats with firearms, excessive use of force, illegal detention, and abuse of power.


The major problems with the police forces were understaffing, insufficient training with firearms, and inconsistent or weak law enforcement. According to a former senior IGAI official, the increase in the number of persons killed by security forces during the year could be linked to the lack of adequate firearm training. There were no indications that police corruption was widespread. During the year police officers received professional training, and the government regulated their actions through mechanisms established by law.

An independent ombudsman is chosen by the parliament and the IGAI to investigate complaints of abuse or mistreatment by police; however, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) criticized the slow pace of investigations and the lack of an independent oversight agency to monitor the IGAI and Ministry of Interior.


Arrest and Detention


The law provides detailed guidelines covering all aspects of arrest and custody, and the authorities generally followed the laws in practice. Persons can only be arrested based on a court ordered warrant. However, warrantless arrests by law enforcement officials and citizens can be made in cases where there is probable cause to believe a crime has been or is being committed and in cases where the person to be arrested is an escaped convict or detention prisoner.


Under the law an investigating judge determines whether an arrested person should be detained, released on bail, or released outright. A person may not be held for more than 48 hours without appearing before an investigating judge. Investigative detention is limited to a maximum of six months for each suspected crime. If a formal charge is not filed within that period, the detainee must be released. In cases of serious crimes such as murder or armed robbery, or of those involving more than one suspect, investigative detention may last for up to two years and may be extended by a judge to three years in extraordinary circumstances. A suspect in investigative detention must be brought to trial within 18 months of being charged formally. If a suspect is not in detention, there is no specified period for going to trial. Detainees have access to lawyers from time of arrest, and the government assumes any necessary costs.


In 2004 the IGAI received 17 complaints linked to arbitrary arrests, which were duly investigated.


There were no reports of political detainees. Lengthy pretrial detention was a problem; however, the government made progress in addressing the problem.


By year's end 2,325 individuals (18 percent of the prison population) were in "preventive detention," which was a decrease from the previous year. According to the Director General for Prisons, the number of pretrial detainees has decreased by approximately one thousand since 2003 due to more efficient legal practices and a doubling in the number of electronic monitoring devices for detainees. Detention time for detainees who remained under preventive detention in prison also decreased significantly. The average detention time was 8 months (down from 26 months), while approximately 20 percent of preventive detainees spent more than 1 year in prison.


e. Denial of Fair Public Trial


The law provides for an independent judiciary, and the government generally respected this provision in practice.


The court system consists of a constitutional court, a supreme court of justice, and judicial courts of first and second instance. There is also a supreme court of administration, which handles administrative and tax disputes and is supported by lower administrative courts. There is an audit court in the Ministry of Finance.


There were more than 500 courts in the country, and approximately 3 thousand magistrates and judges; however, staff shortages, budget restrictions, court delays, and the lack of computerization continued to be serious problems that contributed to inefficiency and a backlog of cases.


Critics, including the media, business corporations and legal observers, estimated the backlog of pending trials was at least a year. A two-day strike in October by judges, district attorneys, court employees, and notaries to protest proposed decreases in benefits and a freeze on automatic promotions did not substantially affect the backlog of cases.


Trial Procedures


Jury trials can be requested for criminal cases but are rare. Civil cases do not have jury trails. Defendants are presumed innocent and have the right of appeal and the right to consult with an attorney in a timely manner, at government expense if needed. They can confront and question witnesses against them, present evidence on their behalf, and have access to government held evidence. These rights were generally followed in practice.


Political Prisoners


There were no reports of political prisoners.


f. Arbitrary Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or Correspondence

The law prohibits such actions, and the government generally respected these prohibitions in practice.


Section 2 Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:


a. Freedom of Speech and Press


The law provides for freedom of speech and of the press, and the government generally respected these rights in practice and did not restrict academic freedom or the Internet. An independent press and judiciary and a functioning democratic political system combined to ensure freedom of speech and of the press.


b. Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association


The law provides for freedom of assembly and association, and the government generally respected these rights in practice.


c. Freedom of Religion


The law provides for freedom of religion, and the government generally respected this right in practice.


The 2001 Religious Freedom Act created a legislative framework for religions established in the country for at least 30 years, or recognized internationally for at least 60 years. The act provides all other qualifying religions with benefits previously reserved for the Catholic Church: full tax‑exempt status, legal recognition for marriage and other rites, chaplain visits to prisons and hospitals, and respect for traditional holidays. In December 2003 rules were enacted to govern the commission that supervises implementation of the act. In 2004 procedures were published in the national gazette, Diario da Republica, on how to create a registry of religious entities.


The Catholic Church maintains a separate agreement with the government under the terms of the 1940 Concordat. In May 2004 the government signed an amended concordat with the Vatican to comply with the 2001 Religious Freedom Act. The new concordat was approved by Parliament and the president and ratified in 2004. It recognized for the first time the juridical personality of the Portuguese Episcopal Conference. It also allows the Catholic Church to receive 0.5 percent of the income tax that citizens can allocate to various institutions in their annual tax returns.


Societal Abuses and Discrimination


The Jewish population was approximately 700. There were no reports of anti-Semitic acts. Government efforts to promote antibias and tolerance education included the president's participation in a ceremony in September to commemorate the anniversary of the founding of Lisbon's 19th century synagogue, which was restored for religious services and cultural events. The government also provided matching funding to help build a new mosque in Lisbon.


For a more detailed discussion, see the 2005 International Religious Freedom Report.


d. Freedom of Movement Within the Country, Foreign Travel, Emigration, and Repatriation

The law provides for these rights, and the government generally respected them in practice.


The law prohibits forced exile, and the government did not employ it.


Protection of Refugees


The law provides for the granting of asylum or refugee status in accordance with the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 protocol, and the government has established a system for providing protection to refugees. In practice the government provided protection against refoulement, the return of persons to a country where they feared persecution. The government granted refugee status or asylum.


The country's system for granting refugee status was active and accessible. The country's refugee population was estimated at 377. According to the Ministry of the Interior, there were 113 requests for political asylum,primarily from African and Central and South American countries.


During the year the government also provided temporary protection to individuals who may not qualify as refugees under the 1951 convention and 1967 protocol, although the exact number was not available.


The government cooperated with the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and other humanitarian organizations in assisting refugees and asylum seekers.


Section 3 Respect for Political Rights: The Right of Citizens to Change Their Government

The law provides citizens with the right to change their government peacefully, and citizens exercised this right in practice through periodic, free, and fair elections on the basis of universal suffrage.


Elections and Political Parties


Free and fair national parliamentary elections were held February 20. The Socialist Party won a ruling majority, ending a governing coalition between the Social Democrat Party (PSD) and the Christian Democrat/People's Party (PP).


There were 58 women in the 230-member parliament. There were two women in the cabinet. There were no minorities in parliament or the cabinet.


Government Corruption and Transparency


There were no reports of government corruption during the year.


The law provides for public access to government information, and the government provided access in practice for citizens and noncitizens, including foreign media.


Section 4 Governmental Attitude Regarding International and Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Violations of Human Rights


A number of domestic and international human rights groups generally operated without government restriction, investigating and publishing their findings on human rights cases. Government officials were cooperative and responsive to their views; however, most of the groups continued to complain about the slow pace of investigations or remedial actions.


The country has an independent human rights ombudsman who is responsible for defending human rights, freedom, privileges, and the legitimate rights of all citizens. The ombudsman had adequate resources and published mandatory annual reports and special reports on such issues as women's rights, prisons, and the rights of children and senior citizens.


Within parliament there is an independent First Committee for Constitutional Issues, Rights, and Liberties and Privileges, which has oversight over human rights issues. It drafts and submits bills and petitions for parliamentary approval. During the year these included improvement of civil protection laws, additional legislation on crimes of moral harassment in the workplace, arson, and parental rights.


Section 5 Discrimination, Societal Abuses, and Trafficking in Persons

The law prohibits discrimination based on race, gender, disability, language, and social status; however, discrimination against women and ethnic minorities persisted.


Women


Violence against women, including domestic violence, continued to be a problem. While there was no clear evidence that violence against women increased, more cases of violence were reported. In January the government established the Portuguese Structure against Domestic Violence (EMCVD), which launched a nationwide awareness campaign against domestic violence, trained health professionals, proposed legislation to improve legal assistance to victims, increased the number of safe houses for victims of domestic violence, and signed protocols with local authorities to assist victims.


Of the nearly 10,041 cases of violence during the first 9 months of the year reported to the Association for Victim Support (APAV), more than 83 percent involved domestic violence. The APAV is a nonprofit, charitable organization that provides confidential and free services nationwide to victims of any type of crime. (Most reported domestic violence cases are registered by the PSP and GNR, who redirect victims to APAV for assistance.)The PSP alone detained 500 suspects of domestic violence during this time period, resulting in 83 arrests.


According to women's rights NGO, the Union of Women Alternative and Response, 39 women were killed by their husbands or partners in the 12 month period that ended in November.


The law provides for criminal penalties in cases of violence by a spouse, and the judicial system prosecuted persons accused of abusing women; however, traditional societal attitudes still discouraged many battered women from using the judicial system.


According to the head of the newly established government-sponsored Mission Against Domestic Violence, only 10 percent of cases were brought to trial. The vast majority were resolved outside of the court system by lawyers who mediated between the parties. In 2003, according to the Ministry of Justice, there were 677 court cases related to domestic violence. Of that number, 43 percent ended were closed without prosecutions.


The government's Commission for Equality and Women's Rights ran 14 safe houses for victims of domestic violence and also maintained a 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week phone service. The safe house services included food, shelter, and health and legal assistance.


The law specifically makes rape, including spousal rape, illegal, and the government generally enforced these laws. However, statistics were not available for the number of abusers who were prosecuted, convicted, or punished.


Prostitution was legal and common, and there were reports of violence against prostitutes. Only pimping, running brothels, and the procurement of prostitutes are illegal and legally punishable. Trafficking in women for the purpose of sexual exploitation continued to be a problem (see section 5, Trafficking).


Sexual harassment is a crime if perpetrated by a superior in the workplace. The penalty is two to three years in prison.


The Commission on Equality in the Workplace and in Employment (CITE), which is composed of representatives of the government, employers' organizations, and labor unions, is empowered to examine, but not adjudicate, complaints of sexual harassment. Reporting of sexual harassment was on the rise. According to a study conducted by the Higher Institute for Labor and Entrepreneurial Sciences and published by CITE, one out of three women has been victim to sexual harassment, which ranged from offensive gazes to sexual propositions, insults and threats to coerced or unwelcome touching.


The civil code provides women with full legal equality with men; however, in practice women experienced economic and other forms of discrimination. Of the 349,847 students enrolled in higher education in the 2004-05 school year, 55 percent were women. Although women made up 47.3 percent of the working population and increasingly were represented in business, science, academia, and the professions, their average salaries were about 30 percent less than men's.


Discrimination by employers against pregnant workers and new mothers was a common problem.


Children


The government was strongly committed to children's rights and welfare. Nine years of compulsory, free, and universal education was provided for children through the age of 15. The majority of children attended school; however 45 percent dropped out before completing high school. The government also provided preschool education for children age four and older upon entry into primary school.


The government provided free or low cost health care for all children until the age of 15; girls and boys had equal access.


Child abuse was a problem. The nonprofit APAV reported 396 cases of crimes against children under 18 during the first 9 months of the year. Most of the cases involved domestic violence.


The high-profile trial of a pedophilia operation at the Casa Pia children's home in Lisbon that began in November 2004 continued at year's end. The 8 defendants faced charges ranging from procurement and rape to homosexual acts with adolescents and sexual abuse of minors for abusing 46 children.


Trafficking of children for sexual exploitation and forced labor remained a problem (see section 5, Trafficking).


Trafficking in Persons


The law prohibits trafficking in persons; however, there were reports that persons were trafficked to, from, or within the country. The law also criminalizes the trafficking of children under 16 years of age for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Each law that can be applied to traffickers, such as facilitating the illegal entry of persons, employing an illegal immigrant, false documentation, extortion, fraud, and sexual exploitation, carries a penalty of between one and eight years' imprisonment. By citing the violation of multiple provisions, judges have handed down longer sentences.


According to the latest available statistics, the government in 2004 initiated 408 investigations and 248 prosecutions related to immigration crimes, including trafficking in persons. The government's annual statistical summaries are for classes of crimes that include trafficking but do not isolate trafficking in person crimes in a separate category. Prison sentences ranged from 18 months to 15 years; however, many were in the 11- to 15-year range.

The government assisted other countries with international investigations of trafficking. In January 2004 the government established an antitrafficking task force to ensure coordination and communication among relevant government bodies and NGOs. In December the government launched a pilot project to combat prostitution and the trafficking of women for sexual exploitation in the country. It involved the Ministries of Justice and Interior, the Commission for the Equality and Rights of Women, the High Commission for Immigration and Minorities, the IOM, various NGOs, and the police and security forces. The project's main goals are to establish a full-time body and database within the Ministry of Interior to monitor trafficking-related developments, open a safe house for trafficking victims, and create a registry for filing legal complaints that can be used by police security forces.


The country is a destination for men and women trafficked from Ukraine, Moldova, Russia, Romania, and Brazil for the purposes of forced labor and sexual exploitation. There were reports that immigrant children were used for street begging. Some trafficking victims were transited through the country to other European countries. Most trafficked persons were Eastern European males who ended up working in construction or in other low-wage industries, such as textile manufacturing, woodworking, metalworking, and marble cutting. Some trafficked women (mostly from Eastern Europe and Brazil) worked as prostitutes. Trafficked persons usually lived in hiding in poor conditions, often with little or no sanitation facilities and in cramped spaces. Some trafficked workers were not paid, and some were "housed" within the factory or construction site. Moldovan, Russian, and Ukrainian organized crime groups reportedly conducted most of the trafficking of Eastern Europeans. The traffickers frequently demanded additional payments and a share of earnings following their victims' arrival in the country, usually under threat of physical harm. They often withheld the identification documents of the trafficked persons and threatened to harm family members who remained in the country of origin.


The government may refer victims to NGOs for short and long‑term assistance and may provide short- or long-term residency for victims willing to cooperate with law enforcement. The government's high commissioner for migration and minorities is responsible for coordinating assistance to immigrants, including trafficking victims.


During the year the government targeted information campaigns toward immigrant populations and to persons in source countries vulnerable to exploitation and trafficking. The government also placed immigration liaison officers in prominent source countries.


Persons with Disabilities


The law prohibits discrimination against persons with disabilities in employment, education, access to health care, or the provision of other state services, and the government effectively enforced the law. The law also mandates access to public buildings for such persons, and the government enforced these provisions in practice; however, no such legislation covers private businesses or other facilities.


The Ministry of Labor and Social Solidarity oversees the National Bureau for the Rehabilitation and Integration of Persons with Disabilities, which is responsible for protection, professional training, rehabilitation, and integration of persons with disabilities, and enforcement of related legislation.


National/Racial/Ethnic Minorities


The government effectively protected the civil and political rights of minority groups. The principal minority groups were immigrants, legal and illegal, from the country's former African colonies, Brazil, and Eastern Europe. Approximately 500 thousand legal immigrants lived in the country, representing an estimated 5 percent of the population. The country also had a resident Romani population of approximately 50 thousand.


Section 6 Worker Rights


a. The Right of Association


The law provides workers with the right to form or join unions of their choice without previous authorization or excessive requirements, and they exercised this right in practice. Approximately 35 percent of the total workforce was unionized.


b. The Right to Organize and Bargain Collectively


The law allows unions to conduct their activities without interference, and the government protected this right in practice. The right to organize and bargain collectively was recognized and exercised freely in practice. The law provides for the right to strike, and workers exercised this right in practice. During the year there were strikes in the education, health, justice, transportation, and agriculture sectors. If a long strike occurs in an essential sector such as justice, health, energy, or transportation, the government may order the strikers back to work for a specific period. The government rarely has invoked this power. However, in October the government intervened in a two-day judges' strike by calling on indispensable workers to avoid delays in ongoing legal actions and court cases (see section 1.e.).


Police officers and members of the armed forces may not strike legally, but they have unions and recourse within the legal system.


There are no export processing zones.


c. Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor


The law prohibits forced and compulsory labor, including by children; however, there were reports that such practices occurred (see section 5).


d. Prohibition of Child Labor and Minimum Age for Employment


The government effectively implemented laws and policies to protect children from exploitation in the workplace.

The minimum working age is 16 years. There were instances of child labor, but the overall incidence was small and was concentrated geographically and by sector. The greatest problems were reported in Braga, Porto, and Faro and tended to occur in the clothing, footwear, construction, and hotel industries.

According to the government's last major study on child labor, in 2001, approximately 48,900 children between ages 6 and 15 engaged in some form of economic activity. Of that number