At the beginning of November, Eva Cruzeiro asked the President of the Assembly of the Republic, José Pedro Aguiar-Branco, to open an investigation into Filipe Melo for shouting words at him that he classified as racist and xenophobic, during a debate on immigration held on October 29, in the presence of the Minister of the Presidency, António Leitão Amaro,
“He shouted at me, go to your homeland”, wrote the PS deputy.
In the complaint, Eva Cruzeiro indicated that, at a constitutional level, the declaration “go back to your land”, addressed to a Portuguese citizen and based on her racial origin, “simultaneously violates the principle of equality, by denying full citizenship based on race; the right to personal identity, by questioning the national identity of the targeted citizen; and the foundation of human dignity, by treating her as a second-class citizen”.
“It is clear that the “go back to your land” that was addressed to me did not refer to the city of Lisbon, where we were and where I was born, but to Africa, as always happens when a black Portuguese person is attacked in this way”, he added.
A few days later, the president of the Assembly of the Republic accepted the validity of the complaint and formally requested the Transparency Commission to open an investigation into Chega deputy Filipe Melo.
In the same order on this case, José Pedro Aguiar-Branco also highlighted that it is up to the judicial authorities “to assess and determine whether the conduct in question meets the constituent elements of any of the legal types of crime provided for in the Penal Code, and it is up to them, accordingly, to decide on the possible initiation of the corresponding criminal proceedings”.
Following this case, Chega later joined a complaint by its deputy Filipe Melo against socialist Eva Cruzeiro, which is also under consideration by the Transparency Commission.
According to Filipe Melo, in the same debate with the presence of minister António Leitão Amaro, Eva Cruzeiro described the deputies of the Chega Parliamentary Group as “racists”, “xenophobes” and belonging to a party that “should not even exist” in light of the Constitution.