The Defense Minister said this Wednesday that he has not presented any measures, proposals, intentions or studies regarding military service as an alternative punishment for young people who have committed petty crimes, saying that he is at the limit of opinion in Parliament. .
“I have not presented any measures, proposals, intentions or any studies. Ultimately, I expressed an opinion. I am here for what I did not say and, ultimately, for an opinion,” said Nuno Melo, who is being heard by the parliamentary defense committee in the Assembly of the Republic.
The Minister of Defense is being heard at the request of Chegi and the IL regarding his statements regarding compulsory military service as an alternative punishment for young people who commit petty crimes, a measure that Nuno Melo, however, denied proposing, a thesis on which he insisted. Wednesday – fair.
Nuno Melo began his first parliamentary hearings as head of the Department of Defense by showing a video of an excerpt of his statements on April 27 at the 13th edition of Universidade Europa in Aveiro, when he said that compulsory military service could be an alternative for young people committing petty crimes, rather than being placed in institutions that “in most cases function only as a school for lifelong crime.”
“If you think carefully about my answer, you will understand that I did two things: first, I praised the Armed Forces, which is obviously fair. And then I showed concern for the lives of many young people who grew up in disadvantaged conditions. contexts,” he said.
Nuno Melo insisted that he was only answering the young man’s question in a purely academic context, and said that he had been living in recent days “in a parallel reality” and warned: “The Assembly of the Republic is not a space for science fiction.” exercises”.
The Minister of Defense expressed concern about the “fight against disinformation” and said that the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, and the Minister of Internal Administration, Margarida Blasco – who even agreed with this position and mentioned that Melo spoke on behalf of the entire leadership – were confronted with statements which “didn’t exist.”
In the first round of speeches, PSD MP Silverio Regalado said the debate on the topic was “a bit like the Twilight Zone” and that MPs were focusing on something “that didn’t exist”.
Social Democratic defense coordinator Bruno Vitorino asked Chegu to stop “chartering” the PS, arguing that by bringing the issue before the commission, MPs were not discussing the “legacy” of the previous socialist leader in the area. National defence.
On the PS side, Socialist Defense Coordinator Luis Díaz believes that Nuno Melo made “unfortunate statements that obviously have consequences in the context of national defense.”
The socialist cited criticism from former military leaders interviewed by the media, saying that none of them called the statements “measures” but that it was a “bad moment” nonetheless. According to the PS, Nuno Melo should apologize to training centers for calling them “criminal schools for life.”
Melo stressed that he spoke at the European University of the PSD “as Minister of Defence”, but this does not mean that he “does not think”.
“We all know what the minister said, the only person who does not seem to know it is the minister,” accused Chegi MP Henrique de Freitas, who was previously the PSD State Secretary of Defense.
Further, in response to a statement by the leader of the IL parliament, Rodrigo Saraiva, Nuno Melo listed a group of countries, namely the United States of America, France, the Netherlands, Greece or Luxembourg, in which young people who commit petty crimes provide a kind of military service, noting that he does not defend it as a measure.
The Liberal MP, who at some points in the hearing expressed some impatience with the minister’s responses, insisted he wanted to move beyond the controversy caused by the minister’s statements and get concrete action from the executive: “It’s all very little. I’m not going to stay until the end if it’s always going to be like this.”
Regarding BE, parliamentary leader Fabian Figueiredo criticized Nuno Melo for listing countries on the list, accusing him of doing so “in a complimentary tone”, while PCP MP António Figueiredo stated that Nuno Melo was “doing very well, but then it went off the rails.”
The communist criticized the idea of the “resocializing function” of military service in the Armed Forces and rejected this type of solution, although it could be applied in any other country, “be it North Korea or Atlético Norte”, which caused laughter in the room at the time.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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