Several parent and guardian associations from central Lisbon schools have issued an open letter expressing their "firm repudiation" of the reading of names of children from "a kindergarten class of a public school" and statements by Chega party deputies both in the Assembly of the Republic and on social media. In the letter, they note that such statements had "the clear objective of fueling a narrative of hate against these children, violating fundamental rights of the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic." They are currently considering filing a complaint about the incident with the National Data Protection Commission (CNPD) and the Commissions for the Protection of Children and Youth (CPCJ).
The document, titled "Open Letter of Repudiation of Xenophobic Statements and the Undue Exposure of Minors," is addressed to the President of the Republic, the President of the Assembly of the Republic, the parties with parliamentary seats, and the mayor of Lisbon. The initiative came from the parent and guardian association of the Escola Básica Arquitecto Victor Palla and has been signed by other associations, including those from Escola Básica Sampaio Garrido, Agrupamento de Escolas Gil Vicente, and others.
In the letter, parents and guardians express their indignation in three points:
- They vehemently repudiate "the public exposure of minors' names and personal data," calling it an act of extreme gravity that violates their right to privacy and targets them with hate and discrimination.
- They refute claims of favoritism in the enrollment process, emphasizing that the placement in public kindergartens follows clear, transparent, and public legal criteria.
- They highlight the national shortage of public preschool education, especially in densely populated areas like Lisbon, but stress that the solution lies in investment and increasing public offerings, not in discrimination and exclusion.
Hugo Evangelista from the Escola Básica Arquitecto Victor Palla association stated that by disclosing the children's names, Chega deputies "fueled a narrative of hate," creating artificial divisions to distract from the real issue: the lack of public kindergarten offerings.
Last week, André Ventura in Parliament and Rita Matias in a video on X (formerly Twitter) read aloud and publicized the names of several students from a central Lisbon school list. These names were circulated in neo-Nazi sympathizer networks as being foreign, as reported by PÚBLICO.
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