Authorities recognize worsening threat from the far right | Far right

The Portuguese authorities recognize the worsening threat from the extreme right, which is often associated with hate crimes and discrimination, and speak of the growth of this phenomenon in younger generations and the creation of youth groups of this type. This is recognized in the preliminary version of the latest Annual Internal Security Report (RASI), for 2023, already reported by PÚBLICO.

The information gains special relevance after the news that a 26-year-old man detained by the Porto PSP in the early hours of last Friday and five other individuals identified by the same police, all suspected of having committed attacks against immigrants that night, are considered by the authorities to belong to the 1143 group, known for its ideology nationalist and neo-Nazi.​

That night alone, the PSP recorded three attacks against immigrants – two attacks on public roads and a third that consisted of the invasion of a house where 11 foreigners live, most of them Algerians working in Portugal. It all happened around one in the morning when a group, with 10 to 15 elements, some hooded, forced entry into the house on Rua do Bonfim, attacking some of the immigrants. They carried batons, knives and sticks. Two of the victims had to receive hospital treatment.

Regarding these cases, the Porto regional attorney general’s office issued a note this Monday, stating that the attacks led to the opening of three independent investigations that are being carried out by the Porto Department of Investigation and Criminal Action. It also confirms that the man detained by the PSP, aged 26, commercial and resident in Gondomar, was detained preventively, a coercive measure applied after the first judicial interrogation. It is also specified that this suspect is “indicted for the crimes of possession of a prohibited weapon and offense to qualified physical integrity”.

“In the field of political extremism, there was a worsening of the threat posed by these sectors, especially in the context of the extreme right”, reads the internal security report. And it adds: “After a period of stagnation, traditional organizations and militants from the neo-Nazi and identity sectors resumed their activity, promoting street actions and other initiatives with propagandistic purposes”.

An example of this was the demonstration against immigration organized last month in Porto by Group 1143, known for its nationalist and neo-Nazi ideology, under the slogan “Less immigration, more Housing”. Previously, several movements linked to the extreme right had tried to schedule a protest entitled “Against the Islamization of Europe” in the Martim Moniz area of ​​Lisbon for the beginning of February, which was banned by the city council. The municipality based its decision on an opinion from the PSP that classified the demonstration that intended to cross an area inhabited essentially by immigrants as “high risk”, highlighting the “high risk of serious and effective disruption of public order and tranquility”. The organizers even tried to overturn the ban in the courts, but without success, ending up letting the protest collapse in the capital.

Crime proliferates in the virtual sphere

The internal security report also talks about the creation of youth organizations “that extend the reach of the extremist message to a new generation with a distinct profile”. This growth of the extreme right among younger generations, the document states, “was due, in large part, to the efforts made in the virtual sphere, making it its main vehicle for disseminating propaganda and driving force for radicalization and contributing, thus, for the proliferation of extremist narratives, which reach a wider and more diverse audience”.

A police source gives as an example of this radicalization the 17-year-old Portuguese young man, a supporter of Nazi ideology, who, through a group formed on a digital platform, incited others to carry out several massacres in schools in Brazil, one of which resulted in the death of a student and in the injury of three other students. Three attacks ended up being aborted by authorities, who also say they prevented the murder of a beggar, which the group planned to broadcast over the Internet. The boy, resident in Santa Maria da Feira and attending 9th. year at a professional school, he ended up in preventive detention.