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On Thursday 30 November, Seixal’s Town Council, in collaboration with MPPM and CPPC, organised the Colloquium "75 years of NAKBA: The Catastrophe in Palestine," which was attended by the Ambassador of Angola, a representative of the Embassy of Venezuela, members of the Embassy of Palestine, local government representatives, and the general public.

Paulo Silva, Mayor of Seixal, and Nabil Abuznaid, Palestinian Ambassador to Portugal, opened the session.

Helena Palacino moderated the panel "The 75th Anniversary of the Nakba and a New Catastrophe: Palestine at the Centre of the World," which opened with a presentation by Carlos Almeida, vice-president of MPPM, who outlined the historical context in which the Palestinian question has unfolded, from the Balfour Declaration to the present day.

Rui Garcia, vice-president of CPPC, addressed the issue of international solidarity and its central role in building peace and the self-determination of peoples.


The Palmela Town Council marked the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People on the morning of 29 November with a ceremony at the Rui Guerreiro Municipal Auditorium in Pinhal Novo, which was attended by the Palestinian Ambassador, elected representatives from the municipality and council parishes, students from schools in Palmela and representatives of MPPM and CPPC.

The Act of Solidarity with the People of Palestine began with the raising of the Palestinian flag by the Mayor of Palmela, Álvaro Balseiro Amaro, and the Palestinian Ambassador, Nabil Abuznaid.

The motion "For the Peace and Self-Determination of the Palestinian People", unanimously approved at the town hall meeting on 22 November, was read out in Portuguese and English by students from the José Maria dos Santos School Group and the International School of Palmela (ISP).

Solidarity with Palestine once again brought hundreds of people together in Lisbon's Praça Martim Moniz in the late afternoon of Wednesday 29 November, the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, in response to an appeal made by CGTP-IN, CPPC, MPPM and Projecto Ruído.

The event began with a die-in, an initiative of the Palestinian community to honour the victims of the Israeli massacre of the people of Gaza.  After a presentation by Dima Dijoore and Ana Nicolau, dozens of people lay down on the floor in a state of silence only interrupted by appropriate Palestinian music.  The die-in ended to the sound of "Grândola Vila Morena."

Sofia Lisboa then read two "Gaza Monologues" from a collection of testimonies from children and young people in Gaza in the aftermath of the cowardly aggression of 2008-2009, which Israel dubbed "Operation Cast Lead."

On Tuesday 28 November, Largo de Camões in Évora hosted a gathering of dozens of people who wanted to show their solidarity with the struggle of the Palestinian people and demand an end to Israel's brutal aggression.


Organised, like others that have taken place all over the country, by CGTP-IN, CPPC, MPPM and Projecto Ruído, the initiative was attended by the Mayor of Évora, Carlos Pinto de Sá, and included speeches by Ana Lourido (CPPC) and José Oliveira (MPPM).

Responding to an appeal from the Portuguese Council for Peace and Cooperation (CPPC), the General Confederation of Portuguese Workers - National Trade Union (CGTP-IN), the Movement for the Rights of the Palestinian People and for Peace in the Middle East (MPPM), and Projecto Ruído - Youth Association, hundreds of people gathered in Palestine Square on Sunday 26 November and marched to D. João I Square accompanied by the drums of the Douro River Seafarers' Association.

With a presentation by Joana Machado, the demonstrators listened to speeches by Maria João Antunes, from MPPM, and Ilda Figueiredo, from CPPC, as well as poetry by Francisco Aguiar, Olga Dias and Pedro Marques.

The Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Lisbon (FLUL), in collaboration with Nucivo, FLUL's Film and Video Centre, the FLUL Students' Association and the Movement for the Rights of the Palestinian People and for Peace in the Middle East (MPPM), presented the film cycle Voices and Colours of Palestine on 21 and 23 November.

The aim of this cycle was to promote a deeper and more humanised understanding of the historical, political and cultural reality of the Palestinian people among the academic community of the University of Lisbon and the Portuguese public in general—an understanding mediated by the original testimony of Palestinian creators and artists.

The population of downtown Coimbra witnessed, and several media outlets recorded, how hundreds of people demonstrated in the evening of Tuesday 21 November in downtown Coimbra in solidarity with the people of Palestine.

Due to the good turnout, this initiative, which was planned as a human cordon, was transformed into a parade/demonstration through downtown Coimbra, from Praça da Portagem, through Rua Ferreira Borges and Rua Visconde da Luz, to Praça 8 de Maio, in front of the Town Hall.

Among other demands, the demonstrators called for an immediate ceasefire.  They also emphasised the urgency of creating the state of Palestine in order to achieve a lasting peace in the Middle East.  At the end, some artists (Rui Damasceno, Ana Biscaia, Eurídice Rocha) read poems referring to Palestinian authors or even beautiful poems composed in solidarity with Palestine by Portuguese author João Pedro Mésseder.

On Wednesday 22 November, the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities (FCSH) of the NOVA University of Lisbon hosted an afternoon of initiatives dedicated to Palestine, organised by its Students' Association.

At 3.30pm, an olive tree, the symbol of the Palestinian resistance, was planted in front of dozens of students in the FSCH entrance square.  Those present heard words from the leadership of the FSCH Students' Association, as well as from the Head of the Palestinian Diplomatic Mission in Portugal, Ambassador Nabil Abuznaid, who called for solidarity with his people in the face of the massacre taking place in Gaza and the occupation that the people of Palestine have endured for many decades.  A large Palestinian flag was then unfurled amid slogans calling for peace in the Middle East and an independent Palestine.

Israel's brutal aggression against the population of the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian people in general, which followed the events of 7 October 2023, sparked an immediate reaction on the streets of Portugal.  After a month and a half, this reaction turned into a wave of actions in solidarity with the Palestinian people and for peace in the Middle East, involving many thousands of Portuguese, as well as Palestinians and people of many other nationalities living in our country.

This wave of solidarity was expressed in street actions in 13 regional capitals and numerous other locations, from the north to the south of Portugal, often under difficult weather conditions.  MPPM has been actively involved from the outset in this wave of solidarity that is sweeping across our country.

It is urgent to stop the genocide in Gaza!
It is urgent to stop the war from spreading to the entire Middle East!
The people of Palestine need justice, not massacres!

"We see, we hear and we read.  We can't ignore it."

The images of horror coming from Gaza bring to mind the poem and song ["Cantata da Paz," a poem by Sophia de Mello Breyner sung by Francisco Fanhais] that told us of other horrors. In the Middle East, and throughout the world, all lives count, all lives have equal value and deserve to be respected, all actions targeting civilian populations are reprehensible and deserve our condemnation.  It must stop!

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