Mother and son discriminated in playground
On the 28th of September, in the city of Braga, a son and his mother from Guinea Bissau, who had been residing there for seven years, were verbally discriminated and came close to being physically assaulted on racial grounds. The three year-old child was playing in a playground, supervised by his mother, when a family of four (three adults and a child) decided to remove him from the playground so that their own child could enjoy it. When the mother asked for satisfactions they replied with verbal discriminatory statements like “My son was born here, this is his playground, you’re black, you’re monkeys, go back to Africa.” The mother decided to call the police, who witnessed the continuing verbal discriminatory assaults by the other family (father, mother and grandmother of the other child), the police even had to physically restrain an individual who, according to the victim, intended to act violently. After this, the victim told the police she would like to press charges. The perpetrator subsequently said he was a Military Officer and the police decided not to accept the victims’ claim. Only 18 days after the incident, the victim was able to add to the claim of verbal insults allegations of racial discrimination. According to the news the police acted as if it was only a case of verbal insult, leading to the engagement of NGO’s like SOS Racismo in support of the victim’s claim.
Source:
European Anti Poverty Network/Portugal http://reapnimprensa.blogspot.com/2007/10/guineense-denuncia-acto-racista-em.html Date of access: 28.10.2011
