In his analysis of this Sunday's events in Martim Moniz, Lisbon, Nuno Ramos de Almeida, a commentator for SIC, warns: "The perceptions they want to sell us, namely the link between crime and immigration, are false."
The police are trying to determine the reasons behind the altercations this Sunday in Martim Moniz, Lisbon. Seven people were injured, three of whom were hospitalized. The PSP confirmed that the brawl involved foreigners from rival groups. Two of the victims were allegedly attacked with knives and the others with sticks and iron bars. So far, no arrests have been made or suspects identified. Security has been increased at the location. The PSP guarantees that this is not an isolated case.
Nuno Ramos de Almeida, a commentator for SIC, believes that it is necessary to put things into perspective, and gives the example of domestic violence.
“On Thursday, we had the 26th woman killed in Barreiro in front of two children. The crime of domestic violence and murder of women is increasing. Our perception of this and our work, from a communications point of view, is what it is and this issue, in essence, has this emphasis because it comes in the wake of a series of events and it is important to emphasise that these events, namely the police raid in which hundreds of people were cornered, did not change the existence of problems, did not resolve the existence of problems”, explains the SIC commentator.
In the opinion of Nuno Ramos de Almeida, another type of policing is necessary and “we need to consider that those perceptions that they want to sell us, namely the link between crime and immigration, are false”.
The journalist also highlights the importance of the authorities' clarification: "It is important that the police, who say that this is not an isolated case, actually explain clearly what happened in this and other situations, otherwise they will feed precisely this perception of insecurity linked to immigration."
Crime data in Portugal
In this morning's analysis on SIC Notícias, Nuno Ramos de Almeida presents concrete data on crime in Portugal and how the numbers show that there is no relationship between immigration and increased crime.
"We have had less than 21% of violent crimes in the last decade, we have had it since 2010 until now, crime is always falling, obviously there are changes, when the pandemic ended it went up, there are years when it is higher and lower, but in a long cycle there is this decline. And what we also see is that the councils that have more immigration do not have more crime, or more immigration does not mean that.
A recent study by sociologist Catarina Reis showed, for example, that in Porto in 2009 we had 17,383 reported crimes and we had 8,809 foreigners.
In 2023 we have 35,653 foreigners, therefore the number of foreigners has more than quadrupled and crime has decreased to 14,552.
Therefore, it means that no matter how much they are constructing this issue, the issue of the increase in crime and the issue of its supposed relationship with the existence of immigrants, this is false, it is completely false", highlights the SIC commentator.