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On International Women's Day, MPPM honors the women who, throughout the world and especially in Palestine, are fighting for freedom, justice, equality, and against discrimination.

Palestinian women, who are present in all sectors of national life, participate with all Palestinians in the struggle against occupation and ethnic cleansing, for the right to live in a free country, while developing their emancipatory struggle for recognition of their rights as women.

An arduous struggle, which is confronted daily with an occupying and annexationist power that denies basic political, economic, social and health rights.

An occupying and annexationist power that is a theocratic state, which develops an apartheid policy by recognizing rights based only on religious belonging, as enshrined in the basic law «Israel: the nation-state of the Jewish people», approved by the Knesset on July 19, 2018.

Responding to an initiative of MPPM, a significant number of personalities representing the most varied sectors of Portuguese life signed an “Appeal to the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the European Union for the recognition of the State of Palestine” in accordance with international law and the relevant United Nations resolutions, and to take action with the other Member States to act in the same direction.

This is the text of the Appeal and the list of first signatories:

APPEAL TO THE PORTUGUESE PRESIDENCY OF THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
FOR THE RECOGNITION OF THE STATE OF PALESTINE!

Since January 1, 2021, in addition to the constitutional obligations that impinge on the conduct of foreign policy, the Portuguese Government assumed, for a period of six months, increased responsibilities in the international context arising from the assumption of the rotating presidency of the Council of European Union.

The Portuguese Council for Peace and Cooperation (CPPC) and the Movement for the Rights of the Palestinian People and for Peace in the Middle East (MPPM) held this Thursday, November 19, 2020, at Casa do Alentejo, in Lisbon, a public session dedicated to the theme “Middle East: Defence of Justice and Peace”.

There were speeches by Ilda Figueiredo, President of the CPPC National Directorate, Carlos Almeida, Vice-President of the MPPM National Directorate, José Goulão, journalist and member of the CPPC Presidency, and Nabil Abuznaid, Palestinian Ambassador to Portugal.

The situation in Palestine is inseparable from that of the entire Middle East, and this was reflected in the different interventions.

They focused the external interference and aggression, with special emphasis on the United States and its European allies, remembering their responsibility in the wars in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Lebanon, and also in Saudi Arabia's aggression against Yemen.

Gaza, mon amour, directed by twins Tarzan and Arab Nasser, is Palestine's candidate for an Oscar nomination for best foreign language film. It premiered this year at the Venice Film Festival and is a co-production of Palestine, France, Germany, Portugal and Qatar.

The film was later screened at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival, where it won the NETPAC (Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema) Award, which honours the best Asian films at selected festivals around the world.

Inspired by a true situation that occurred in Gaza in 2014, the film tells the story of Issa (Salim Dau), a 60-year-old fisherman from Gaza, who is secretly in love with the milliner Siham (Hiam Abass) and whose luck changes when he picks up in his fishing net a phallic sculpture of the Greek god Apollo...

The Algarve provided the locations for the filming of scenes on the beaches and in the sea of Gaza, put off-limits by the Israeli-Egyptian blockade.