Porto Jewish community files ’21st century blood libel’ lawsuit in Lisbon court
Community seeks £8,63m in damages from the state, claiming measures taken by the attorney general and police led to 'tens of thousands of messages of hatred'
The Jewish community of Porto has filed a civil lawsuit with a court in Lisbon in an attempt to seek compensation for alleged political aggression by prosecutors and police.
The community is seeking £8.63m in damages from the state, claiming that the measures taken by the attorney general and police in Portugal have led to “tens of thousands of messages of hatred against the community on social media and in the press, about a million online publications linking the community’s name to the word ‘corruption,’ and severely harmed the community’s future ability of to raise funds for its religious and cultural activities.”
The community has also filed a petition with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg against the Portuguese government, claiming “brutal actions” against it as well as damage to its reputation, calling it “21st-century blood libel”.
The petition also says that the community’s rabbi was arrested and humiliated while an “unexpected search” was conducted at the community’s institutions – including the Kadoorie Mekor Haim synagogue.
“Without meeting the minimum threshold required to prevent human rights abuses, millions of documents and private correspondence relating to the community and its members were taken from the community’s institutions, just as the Inquisition did when it framed members of the Jewish community and invaded their homes and workplaces, based on anonymous complaints,” a statement from the community said.
“The organisation cannot forgive the fact that, on the basis of anonymous condemnations, our synagogue was trampled on by 15 policemen carrying weapons, and the humiliating and violent search of the home of the community’s vice president, granddaughter of the ‘Portuguese Dreyfus’ and a respected economist in her seventies, in search of ‘bags of cash,’” said Porto Jewish community president Gabriel Senderowicz.”
The community claims that the joint Attorney General-police public announcement immediately created a wave of antisemitic hatred against the Jewish community and its members, who were accused of “mafia conduct,” “corruption” and “selling the state”.
“All this was done on the basis of anonymous complaints, without a single piece of concrete evidence and, as later described by the Lisbon Court of Appeal’s judges in a September 27, 2022 decision, as ‘based on nothing,’ without a shred of evidentiary support and without evidence justifying the actions taken,” the petition said.
The events “destroyed the good name of the Jewish community in Porto, Portugal and internationally. To date, there are more than a million online references linking the community’s name to corruption, and the community demands a correction and a public apology from the Portuguese government.”
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