‘Muslims were not foreigners’: Why don’t Portugal’s restitution laws include everyone?
THE NATIONAL (31/3/2020) Mouraria, a trendy neighbourhood in Lisbon’s city centre, still bears the name of its former inhabitants, the Moors – Muslims who lived in the Iberian Peninsula in modern Spain and Portugal, and once walked its maze of narrow and winding streets and tightly packed alleys. Next to Mouraria stands Alfama – from […]
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Os muçulmanos que Portugal expulsou e esqueceu
EXPRESSO (1/2/2020) Brafame Gordo e o seu irmão Galebo partiram do Alentejo tão contrariados que chegaram mesmo a pedir autorização ao rei para os deixar regressar. Numa petição dirigida à coroa portuguesa (hoje guardada na Torre do Tombo) dão o nome de três cristãos seus vizinhos em Elvas, que poderiam fornecer recomendações, e pedem para […]
Read →Meet Fado Bicha, Portugal’s queer anti-racist feminist musicians
OPENDEMOCRACY (28.8.2019) 2019 got off to a bad start in Portugal. In January, the leader of a far-right group – who spent 12 years in prison for his role in a racist murder and other hate crimes – was invited to speak on one of Portugal’s most popular TV talk shows. On air, he argued that the country needs a new […]
Read →Islamic traces in Portugal’s past
AL ARABY (13/6/2019) Last year, Lisbon’s Islamic Community celebrated its 50th anniversary. The community was established by migrants in the 1960s, but Islam has much more ancient roots in Portugal. “Islam is in Portugal’s soul,” said the Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa while standing at the entrance of the Central Mosque of Lisbon for the […]
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Where Christians pray facing Mecca
QANTARA (27/5/2019) Archaeologists in Mertola have spent the last 40 years looking for traces of Portugalʹs Islamic past. What they found shows that Islam is not alien to Europe and has in fact deeply influenced Portuguese history and culture. When archaeologist Claudio Torres first visited Mertola, a small town in the south of Portugal, he […]
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Echoes of al-Andalus: The Portuguese town celebrating its forgotten Islamic past
MIDDLE EAST EYE (23/5/2018) An imposing building with cylindrical towers stands out on the steep hill of Mertola, a southern Portuguese town on the banks of the Guadiana river, not far from the Spanish border. Is it a church with a mihrab? Or a mosque with a cross? The whitewashed building with horseshoe arches is […]
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Portuguese shopkeepers using ceramic frogs to ‘scare away’ Roma
Al JAZEERA (4/2/2019) Portugal’s ceramic frogs croak racism. Al Jazeera reveals racist practice that plays on superstition among Roma who consider frogs symbol of bad luck. Porto, Portugal – Surrounded by baskets of oranges and tangerines, a bright green ceramic frog stands at the entrance of Helena Conceicao’s grocery shop. “Everybody has frogs here,” she said. […]
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Gentrification in Porto: will the city turn into a hotel?
OPEN DEMOCRACY (9/1/2019) Tourism is booming in Portugal, but so is housing speculation. Gentrification has been causing the displacement of the poor, a proliferation of hotels and shrinking public space. “The bookshop closed, the greengrocer and the florist closed. The city will turn into a tourist’s hotel”, sings the band Samba sem Fronteiras. They sing in the Worst […]
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Retratos dos despejos no Porto
JORNAL MAPA (SET/NOV 2018) A especulação imobiliária desencadeada pela explosão do turismo tem feito com que a habitação no Porto seja cada ver mais vista como um investimento e não como um direito. As rendas têm vindo a disparar, e são cada vez mais os inquilinos com ordens de despejo ou com contratos que não […]
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Portugal, país acolhedor? Refugiados partilham histórias de discriminação
BUALA (6/8/2018) Em 2016, o primeiro-ministro António Costa anunciou a disponibilidade para aumentar a quota de refugiados. Desde então, o governo português tem reiterado o seu compromisso de receber pessoas refugiadas. Os discursos de boas-vindas aos refugiados contribuem para reforçar a auto-imagem que Portugal se abona como país acolhedor e tolerante. No entanto, segundo um relatório publicado pelo Alto […]
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