Solidarity Session with the Palestinian People, in Oporto
With the participation of more than thirty people including several immigrated Palestinian citizens, took place, on November 28th, 2022, in the auditorium of the UNICEPE Bookstore, in Oporto, the Solidarity Session with the Palestinian People, held on the initiative of MPPM, in the context of the Journeys of Solidarity with Palestine 2022 programmed by the movement for Coimbra, Oporto, and Lisbon.
José António Gomes, writer and member of the MPPM's board of directors, gave an introduction to the session and highlighted the main political points of the statement released by the movement on November 28th.
Henrique Borges, union leader and responsible for the Peace and Solidarity work front of the Northern Teachers Union, focused on the disinformation and silence campaign of which Palestine is a victim, underlining also the importance of memory. Purpose: to counter the erasure of the history of the Palestinian people before and after the Nakba of 1948.
He reiterated the call for solidarity and information, a topic taken up by Ilda Figueiredo who, in her analysis of the international situation, criticized the European Union's policy of following the USA in relation to Palestine. The president of the Portuguese Council for Peace and Cooperation also referred to the declaration condemning Israel's policy approved in the recent World Peace Assembly held in Hanoi, and in which the speaker participated.
Nur Rabah Latif, a Palestinian student at the University of Porto, spoke next, evoking her personal experience, as well as that of her grandmother who lived through the traumas of the Israeli occupation, namely in 1948 and during the Six Day War, in 1967.
Rui Vaz Pinto, president of UNICEPE's board of directors, recited, at different moments of the session, Mahmud Darwich's poems translated by Albano Martins and published in the book "O Jardim Adormecido e Outros Poemas".
A lively debate followed, with interventions from several Portuguese and Palestinian participants.
