Andre Ventura believes that there is a “risk of accelerated Islamization of Europe”

President Chegi believes there is a “risk of accelerated Islamization of Europe”, which is already being felt in Portugal, but denies the party’s links to Saturday’s demonstration organized by neo-Nazi Mario Machado.

“I also sincerely believe that there is a risk of an accelerated Islamization of Europe, much greater than in Portugal at the moment, but Portugal is also already feeling this trace,” says Andre Ventura in an interview with Lusa, a week after the far-right demonstration in Lisbon against what they call the Islamization of Europe.

Group 1143, a far-right movement whose representative is neo-Nazi militant Mario Machado, wanted to demonstrate first in the Muraria area, but this action was prohibited for security reasons, so the protest was held in Sissing with torches. and banners with messages such as “Stop Islam” or “Portugal to the Portuguese.”

“We have to be careful about Islamic immigration,” said Andre Ventura, acknowledging the “potentially discriminatory analysis” of his statement.

Given that there is a “risk of Islamization” and that “this risk must be controlled,” Andre Ventura argued that it “has a civilizational character.”

President Chegi defended the need to “maintain a balanced European cultural matrix, which is a Jewish-Christian matrix.”

“This is not an Islamic matrix in nature, and therefore the acceleration of immigration with a focus on Islamic countries introduces an imbalance in this cultural and civilizational matrix,” he said.

Ventura argued that these are “communities that often or almost always have difficulty integrating and create cultural ghettos.”

Asked whether there were Muslim ghettos in Portugal, he replied: “I will leave that question for another analysis, I don’t want to make that judgment. “I think there is a real risk of that happening and I think if we have the example of other countries in Europe we should avoid it happening here.”

When asked to also clarify what danger these people actually pose, the Chegi leader replied that it is the risk of “distorting the civilizational balance and the Judeo-Christian matrix.”

Chegi’s leader also believes that the country of origin restriction is a “more problematic issue” and “can sometimes be unfair to those on the other side.”

“But I think that someone who came from Afghanistan or Pakistan cannot have the same type of control and preliminary analysis as someone who came from Spain, or someone who came from Morocco, or someone who came from Brazil,” he said.

Andre Ventura supported his position, citing the “excessive relaxation” of immigrant entry, which could pose “some risks in terms of internal security, since these are countries where there is a very strong presence of terrorism, Islamic fundamentalism, and also countries where there is almost no control exists. “exists”.

Asked about last Saturday’s protest and news that Chega supporters were participating, Ventura stressed that his party “has nothing to do with this demonstration” but said he does not know whether there were “Chegi’s people are there or not.”

“Chega had nothing to do with this demonstration, did not sponsor, did not help, had nothing to do with this demonstration,” he insisted, noting, however, that he does not control everything in “a party with 50 thousand members.” .

Chega advocates the abolition of the mobility agreement between the countries of the Community of Portuguese-speaking Countries (CPLP) and the reversal of the closure of the Aliens and Border Guard Service, as well as strengthening controls with the establishment of annual quotas for the entry of foreigners. in Portugal based on people’s qualifications and labor market needs.

“We never said we were going to expel everyone, we never said we were going to expel people for the sake of expulsion, we said we need to control immigration, as most European countries now recognize,” he said. calling into question “the protection of more vulnerable people or those whose lives are at risk,” he said.