RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The walls of the Portuguese Catholic University (UCP) and a secondary school in Lisbon were graffitied with racist and xenophobic insults in the early hours of Friday, October 29th. The inscriptions refer to a “white Europe” and ask Brazilian immigrants to “go back to the favelas.”
One of the graffiti makes direct reference to Brazilian immigrants. “Zucas, go back to the favelas. We don’t want you here,” reads the inscription, using the nickname (short for ‘Brazucas’) by which Brazilians are sometimes known in Portugal.
Other racist content messages were also identified, such as “Long live the white race” and “Out with the blacks”. According to the institution’s students, the university walls having the offensive graffiti were discovered at dawn. The walls of a Lisbon high school were similarly vandalized.
This is not the first time that students of the Portuguese Catholic University have reported cases of racism and xenophobia among the Portuguese at the institution. In June, similar content was posted in a social media group of law students.
At the time, the university said it had opened an internal disciplinary proceeding to investigate those responsible. “Similarly, it will submit a complaint to the Prosecutor’s Office for a crime of racial discrimination,” the institution said in a statement.
“I have already experienced several difficult situations since I came to Lisbon because I am Brazilian; for instance, a very dear professor told me to be careful not to spread any tropical diseases to the class,” says law student Ana Luisa Tinoco. According to the Brazilian born in São Paulo, situations like this have become recurrent.
In a note about this Friday’s case, the Rector’s office of UCP stated that a complaint has been filed with the Portuguese Prosecutor’s Office and the graffiti are being analyzed.
“The university does not tolerate this action, which violates the basic principles of what the university as a space for openness and dialogue represents, and reiterates that it will firmly continue to develop its educational work based on respect for the dignity of the person, on the values of freedom and dialogue,” the institution said in a note.
In April 2019, a similar case occurred at the University of Porto. A wooden crate with stones appeared at dawn in a corridor of the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon (FDUL) with the following sentence: “Free if meant to throw at a ‘zuca’ (who jumped the queue for the master’s degree)”. The words were interpreted as an invitation to the stoning of Brazilians.
Source: Veja