The Minister of Defense insisted this Wednesday that he did not present any measure, proposal, intention or study on military service as an alternative punishment for young people who commit minor crimes, saying that he is in parliament “at the limit, for an opinion”.
“I did not present any measure, proposal, intention or any study. Ultimately, I expressed an opinion. I am here for something I did not say and, ultimately, for an opinion”, declared Nuno Melo, who is being heard in the parliamentary committee of Defense, in the Assembly of the Republic.
The Minister of Defense is being heard at the request of Chega and IL regarding his statements regarding compulsory military service as an alternative penalty for young people who commit petty crimes, a measure that Nuno Melo has however denied having proposed, a thesis he insisted on this Wednesday- fair.
Nuno Melo began his first hearing in parliament as head of the Defense area, showing a video with an excerpt of his statements on April 27th, at the 13th edition of the Universidade Europa, in Aveiro, when he stated that the service Mandatory military service could be an alternative for young people who commit petty crimes instead of being placed in institutions that, “in most cases, only function as a school of crime for life.”
“If you carefully consider my response, you will understand that I did two things: firstly, I praised the Armed Forces, which is an exercise of obvious justice. And then I showed concern about the lives of many young people who grew up in disadvantaged contexts”, he stated.
Nuno Melo insisted that he was just answering a question from a young man in a purely academic context and said that he had lived in recent days “under a parallel reality” and warned: “The Assembly of the Republic is not a space for science fiction exercises”.
The Minister of Defense expressed concern about “the fight against disinformation” and argued that the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, and the Minister of Internal Administration, Margarida Blasco, – who even agreed with the position and mentioned that Melo was speaking on behalf of the entire executive – were confronted with statements that “didn’t happen”.
In the first round of interventions, PSD deputy Silvério Regalado stated that the debate on this topic “is a bit reminiscent of a ‘twilight zone'” and that the deputies are focusing on something “that did not exist”.
The social-democratic coordinator in the area of Defense Bruno Vitorino asked Chega to stop “freighting” the PS, arguing that by bringing this issue to the commission, deputies are not debating “the legacy” of the previous socialist executive in the area of National defense.
On the PS’s side, the socialist defense coordinator Luís Dias considered that Nuno Melo made “unfortunate statements that obviously have consequences in the context of National Defense”.
The socialist cited criticism from former military leaders interviewed by the media, arguing that none of them referred to the statements as “measures” but that, nevertheless, it was “an unfortunate moment”. In the PS’s opinion, Nuno Melo should apologize to the educational centers, for having said that they are “crime schools for life”.
Melo stressed that he spoke at the PSD’s Universidade Europa “as Minister of Defense” but that this does not mean that he “has no thought”.
“We all know what the minister said, the only person who doesn’t seem to know is the minister”, accused Chega deputy Henrique de Freitas, who was previously Secretary of State for Defense for the PSD.
Further on, in response to the IL parliamentary leader, Rodrigo Saraiva, Nuno Melo listed a group of countries, namely the United States of America, France, the Netherlands, Greece or Luxembourg, in which young people who commit minor crimes provide some type of military service, noting that he was not defending it as a measure.
The liberal deputy, who at several moments during the hearing expressed some impatience with the minister’s responses, insisted that he wanted to go beyond the controversy generated by the minister’s statements and find out concrete measures from the executive: “This is all very little. I’m not going to stay until to the end if this is always the case.”
For BE, parliamentary leader Fabian Figueiredo criticized Nuno Melo for listing this list of countries, accusing him of having done so “in a complimentary tone” and PCP deputy António Filipe stated that Nuno Melo “was doing very well but then derailed “.
The communist criticized the idea of a “resocializing function” of military service in the Armed Forces and rejected this type of solution, even though it could apply in any other country, “be it North Korea or Atlético Norte”, at a time that generated some laughter in the room.
Tags: didnt Nuno Melo comments statements military service parliamentary defense committee Politics
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