Following a visit to Portugal in January, the UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers expressed concern that rising court and legal fees were obstructing access to justice for more people living in poverty as a result of the economic crisis.
Amnesty International also highlighted prominent cases of police violence that grabbed world headlines. In May, a police officer was filmed beating a man in front of his two children and father outside the Guimarães football stadium.
The footage shows a police officer pushing a seemingly peaceful football fan to the ground and hitting him several times with a baton while his children are restrained.
The same officer can also be seen punching the man’s father in the face twice as he intervenes to stop the beating.
The organisation also refers to Portugal being the European country with one of the smallest numbers of refugees.
“Only 39 of the 44 refugees previously selected for resettlement in Portugal in 2014, and none of those selected for resettlement in 2015, had arrived in the country by the end of the year”, it said.
Portugal further committed to receiving 4,574 asylum-seekers to be relocated from Italy and Greece under the EU relocation programme within the following two years. However, only 24 people had been relocated by the end of 2015.
According to the Portuguese Refugee Council, the reception centre for refugees in Lisbon remained overcrowded.
Furthermore, in July, a study by the New University of Lisbon “estimated that 1,830 girls residing in Portugal had been subjected to, or were at risk of, female genital mutilation (FGM).”
New legislation entered into force in September, introducing FGM as a specific crime in the Penal Code.
Meanwhile, discrimination against Roma gypsy communities continued to be reported in several municipalities.
In July, the Mayor of Estremoz barred Roma individuals living in the Quintinhas neighbourhood from using municipal swimming pools following reported acts of vandalism by a number of its residents.
The decision was challenged by the Commission for Equality and against Racial Discrimination and a ruling was pending at the end of the year.
“Racially motivated abuse and unnecessary use of force by police against people of African descent continued to be reported”, AI said.
“In February, five young men of African descent reported having been beaten and subjected to racist comments by police officers in the Alfragide police station, after complaining about excessive use of force during an arrest in the Alto da Cova da Moura neighbourhood earlier the same day. They received medical treatment for injuries sustained and were charged with resistance and coercion of an officer”, the report recalled.
Last year, The Portugal News published comments and testimonies from people living in predominantly black areas who felt their complaints of racism were not being heard.
The Left Bloc party at the time further published a statement that it was commonplace “to hear in these neighbourhoods that blacks are to be eliminated.”
According to the Left Bloc, these reports are “absolutely deafening” and are calling for a “profound debate on the multiple forms of racism that Portuguese society continues to endure.”
The party added that “studies, including a recent UN report, show that communities of African origin have limited access to education and public services” and that these “communities are also under-represented.”
Jakilson Pereira, representing Plataforma Gueto, lamented the problems between communities and the police, and accused law enforcement of exhibiting what he termed “generalised violent behaviour.”
He argued that “while the community does not want to stand in the way of police work, it demands respect, and calls on society to take note that the rule of law is often suspended in these areas.”
Mamdou Ba, leader of SOS Racismo, revealed at the time that “police violence is a structural issue and most, if not all state institutions, are infected by racism.
“Police cannot come into neighbourhoods as if they were entering a war zone”, stressed Mamdou Ba.
But while Portugal was at the receiving end of some harsh criticism in the 2015/16 Amnesty International report, it did not form part of a list of 19 nations where abuses are of particular concern. Among them were the UK and the USA.
In Britain, the “continued use of mass surveillance in the name of countering terrorism and its regressive attempts to evade oversight by the European Court of Human Rights”, was singled out by the organisation, while the United States was criticised for the continuing operation of the Guantanamo detention centre, an example of the grave consequences of its “global war on terror” and its failure to prosecute those responsible for torture and enforced disappearances.