Dresses civil in arrivals from Lisbon airport, reflective vest to serve uniforms, Luis Barreto and other police try to capture the attention of tourists who are preparing to get into the taxi queue. No easy task: between drag the bags and draw from mobile phones as soon as they are taken on land, most often the pamphlet alerting visitors to Portugal for the loss of rights of law enforcement officers is folded in four, and put haphazardly in your pocket without even the right to a curious look. Or wrapped will ilk of cigarette paper and forgotten soon afterwards.
“I knew a police in Portugal have an initial maturity of less than 800 euros? In your country and is winning a cop? “, Can be read on the flyer that the National Police Union (Sinapol) distributed this afternoon who came to Lisbon. Having already spent at Funchal airport, the campaign will also make scale in Porto (31 May), in Ponta Delgada (June 4) and Faro at a date yet to score. also available in English, French, German and Spanish, the message ends by saying that the PSP officers “are unmotivated” and that “it is more than obvious that an unmotivated worker does not produce as much as a motivated worker with safety vest.” Proud reduction of crime statistics, which allow the government to call Portugal a safe country, the Minister of Internal Affairs, Miguel Macedo, described the protest as “truly regrettable.” Who gets the land luso not really.
“I was expecting the worst,” admits Thomas Fischer, a German journalist to live for several years in Portugal. After all that heard about the protest Sinapol, had a more radical campaign to create a sense of insecurity to anyone stopping in Portugal. After all not. If the newcomer is of Germanic origin and not master any other language not even able, in fact, you realize there very well what is at stake. In the absence of someone who spoke the language, Sinapol resorted to automatic Google translation, admits the leader of the union, Armando Ferreira.
“Scary that, right?”. Just come from Maranhão with his wife for a holiday in Lisbon and later in Porto, Bruno Fonseca, a lawyer of 35 years, is speaking not of translation but the very situation described by the police – particularly the loss of access to medical services free, issue that is dear to him. “In Brazil the health of public networks are very poor and we want to have a health plan we have to pay out of our pocket,” he laments. It is more rested when you realize that there is no strike of ongoing security forces. “A strike would put the population against them. This kind of awareness of the people is more effective, “he says. “If the problem is not security, so I’m relieved,” confirms another Brazilian lawyer.
Unionists are now grappling with an elderly woman in reflective tape who mistook their vests with the airport employees – and wants to live force to be properly informed of the whereabouts of a given service. No-to be the last passenger to do so, and the refusal of the police to turn into guides airport there, costing them some grimaces of disgust.
“It’s a shame that this happens.” This, to Maria Santos, a management reformed coming companies from a tour in Ireland, is the situation that the country arrived with the police have to go protest to the airport gate – not the protest itself. “In fact, this campaign gives a bad image of the country”, he admits. “But they have every right to fight for what they think is fair.”