Braga. Lawyers promise to perpetuate the memory of opposition to the Estado Novo

The announcement of the launch of a screen print and the placement of a piece reminiscent of his action, in front of the Judicial Court of Braga, marked the tribute to lawyers, held at the Legal Association, in a ceremony where the memory of what was live in the Estado Novo, thanks to those who constituted ‘the backbone’ in the opposition to the Dictatorship.

In a full room, with representatives from the entire district, Maria Manuela Marques, on behalf of the working group, set up for this specific evocation by the Commission for Homage to the Democrats of the District of Braga, announced the intention of raising funds with the sale of the Screen print (for sale for 150 euros), by lawyer Artur Marques, entitled ‘Da Noite se faz Luz’ to create a piece that “perpetuates everyone who resisted and faced Salazar’s regime”.

Paulo Sousa, on behalf of the Commission, announced that the 2nd of May – the date scheduled for the end of the work – will be marked by the tribute to the honorary president of the Commission, José Sampaio, also a lawyer, and Jorge Miranda, two people from Braga, two personalities who personify the two-year work: ‘Memory and Freedom’, the first as a resister and opponent to the Estado Novo, the second as a “builder of Freedom”.

Saluting “the women and men who wore the shirt for Freedom and Democracy”, the Commission coordinator classified them “as the backbone of the Democratic Movement that never gave up, resisted and won”. They embody, he said, “each and every one, the conviction that, as Salgado Zenha said, “on a moral level, which is what matters, only those who give up fighting are defeated”.

BOMB IN THE OFFICE”

For his part, Macedo Varela, one of the leaders of the opposition to fascism, intervened to defend that it is important to “ensure the independence of the judiciary, which means “the fight for Freedom and Democracy”.

Recognizing that he “was lucky” to have never been arrested, that lawyer from Famalicão, however, recalled the day he was dismissed from the bench, by decision of the Council of Ministers.

“I was 25 years old”, he recalls. “The system imposed and disposed of people’s freedom as if it owned them”, explained the lawyer who recalled the day Pide gutted his office. In his intervention he mentioned the names of other lawyers from Famalicão such as Armando Bacelar, José Azevedo, Joaquim Loureiro or Margarida Malvar, present at the ceremony.

Artur Marques, author of the silkscreen, honored with the tribute, preferred to point out that the most striking thing “was not the actions of the lawyers, but their civic intervention”, despite their role in the plenary courts.

“There were giant and small lawyer fighters”, he explained when recalling the effects of his intervention: “I was hit with a bomb in the office”.

For Artur Marques, it is important to pay tribute to the lawyers who “made their contribution so that there was no return to the past”.

Tarroso Gomes, on the other hand, made a point of adding four more names to the list of those mentioned in the silkscreen and recalled those who were candidates from the 1949 elections to 1969.