Candidate for the European elections for ADN – National Democratic Alternative, Joana Amaral chose to campaign this Thursday in Terreiro do Paço, the stage for the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the 25th of April.
During a live broadcast on Instagram, the candidate was called a fascist by some people passing by and there were those who tried to take down her cell phone.
Contacted by SAPO24, Joana Amaral Dias assured that this situation will not limit her from exercising her rights as a citizen.
“I defend April’s values as I have always defended since I came to activism and politics. I defend freedom, peace, democracy, justice and people’s right to demonstrate.”
According to the European candidate for ADN, the party held this moment of campaigning after the end of the official ceremonies that took place in Terreiro do Paço, precisely to “not cause disruptions”.
The poster behind him and the direct post he made on his social networks, he said, were intended to “remember the importance of the Constitution”. But it was during this live that she began “to be attacked”.
“I don’t consider myself sensitive to insults, but all limits were crossed there. There is physical, verbal and psychological aggression there, which I find regrettable. It became clear today on which side the true democrats and the true extremists are,” he said.
“I plan to continue demonstrating as I did today”, guaranteed Joana Amaral Dias. “This is not going to change or stop me now. I cannot stop exercising my citizenship rights because I feel pressured or admonished in some way,” she added.
“But it doesn’t surprise me”, he said finally, lamenting the passivity of many when “we witness a cavalcade to take away rights, freedoms and guarantees”.
Former deputy Joana Amaral Dias will be the head of the National Democratic Alternative (ADN) party list for the European elections on June 9, with the aim of obtaining at least one mandate in the European Parliament.
“I want to be your voice in the European Parliament”, said the candidate, noting that she is on the ADN list as an independent.
Joana Amaral Dias said that she is running to “fight for peace, freedom, justice and democracy” and wants “a European space that is governed by elected officials and not by elites”.
The candidacy was presented at an initiative that took place at the Armed Forces Disabled Association, in Lisbon, on March 18, and included interventions by the candidate and the president of the ADN, Bruno Fialho.
“There are no mistakes here, no mistaken votes. The votes in the ADN were no coincidence, they belong to more and more Portuguese people who realize that they have been defrauded, abandoned by democracy”, defended the activist, in reference to the party’s growth in the last legislative elections, attributed by some to voters’ confusion with AD (PSD/CDS-PP/PPM coalition).
Joana Amaral Dias said she was against war, against “gluttonous globalization”, against “censorship and silencing” and also against “perverse monopoly that has turned free competition into a myth”.
“I am moved by a Europe that is not always subservient to opaque powers,” he said.
Asked about the recommendation approved by the European Parliament for the inclusion of abortion in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, the candidate said that she defends the voluntary termination of pregnancy “in certain circumstances” and that she considers that this “is not a fundamental right”.
The president of the ADN said that the party’s objective is “to at least elect Joana Amaral Dias”, but considered that “it is possible to reach the second European deputy” or even “a third” and again asked for the voters’ “vote of confidence”. who voted in the legislatures.
In the last legislative elections, the ADN obtained more than 100 thousand votes, after having received almost 11 thousand in 2022.
Bruno Fialho also justified the choice of Joana Amaral Dias to head the list, highlighting that she is “activist, independent, informed, cultured and intelligent” and a “defender of Portugal’s independence and sovereignty”, as well as a “symbol of non-conformity”.
In his intervention, Bruno Fialho considered that Europe “is currently experiencing the most challenging period in history” and argued that the “essence of the problem lies in the power that has been handed over to European institutions”.
The leader said that “ADN wants to have a strong and active voice” of “resistance against attacks on democracy, rights and freedoms” that he considered to be ongoing, and chose “globalism” as “the biggest enemy”.
Joana Amaral Dias was already a member of the Assembly of the Republic elected by BE, a candidate in the 2015 legislative elections for the AGIR coalition (PTP and MAS), a candidate for the Lisbon Chamber for Nós, Cidadãos! and representative of socialist Mário Soares in the 2016 presidential elections.
The head of the list said in the presentation that he had not changed “that much” since he arrived in politics, “more than 20 years ago” and countered: “It was the other political forces who won, who threw the towel to the ground, it was the other , I always follow the same one.”
Tags: Joana Amaral Dias attacked stop exercising citizenship rights stop Current Affairs
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