Former inspectors from the Foreigners and Borders Service accuse public TV of “abuse” and “lack of rigor”.
The use of archive images of SEF employees working at Lisbon Airport to illustrate a case of a wrong decision to refuse entry to Portugal for a young Brazilian couple, after the extinction of this organization, by RTP, in the program ‘ Last Friday’s Proof of Facts is generating controversy.
The management of the PMFSEF association, made up of former SEF employees and led by former national director Luísa Maia Gonçalves, issued a statement this Saturday in which it “repudiates” this situation, since the SEF was “extinct by political-legislative option, on October 29, 2023, and no intervention could have been made in the situation.”
“We therefore consider it abusive and revealing of a flagrant lack of journalistic rigor the use, in a report criticizing the actions of the border control authority, of images of employees of a service that, given its extinction, no longer has an organizational structure that can react to news that is likely to jeopardize the image and competence of its employees”, writes the PMFSEF in a statement, to which the CM had access and in which he also asks RTP to clarify the situation. Contacted by CMRTP did not provide clarification.It should be added that the case reported by RTP took place on February 11th, being the responsibility of the PSP, as a security force currently responsible for controlling air borders. Allegedly, the couple was detained at the airport, without valid grounds, and the decision was revoked two days later. The complainants allege that they were not given any explanation for what happened.
