TI1E POLITICAL PRISONERS IN PORTUGAL. [To TUN EDITOR. OW TUX
"SPECTATOR.'] Sia,—With absolutely neutral approach to the matter, having no bias, monarchical or republican, emphasis is imperative on the fact that the protests of the assentients to the Portuguese Government denying reports of the prison horrors are not vindicated by the most widely circulated organs of the Portu- guese Press, whose statements are of the more value seeing that only journals of avowedly republican opinion are per- mitted to appear.
In an article entitled " Liberty in 1828 and in 1911 " the Diario de Noticias, the most important independent newspaper of Lisbon, thus expressed itself : "In 1828 persons accused of the crime of rebellion were not imprisoned but only banished from Portugal for six months. Now, judged by special tribunals, they are condemned (as was a prisoner accused of having carried two letters) to six years' imprisonment in cells, followed by ten years' deportation, with the option of twenty years' deportation. And the political prisoners Of Coimbra are subjected, like the most degraded criminals, to the Bertillon measurements. The comparison is rather favourable . . . to the legislators of 1828."
Consequent upon protestations against systematic oppres- sion on the part of the editor, Senor Claro, the offices of the republican journal, the Diario do Porto, were recently raided by a republican mob. In its issue of September 21st, 1911, the Lisbon organ 0 Dia inserted the text of the following letter addressed by the prisoners in the fort of Caxias to the Minister of Justice "Your Excellency "For two months the political prisoners brought from Aveiro have been shut up in the fort of Quies under the most cruel conditions. They have not yet been tried.
" They are in extreme misery. The cells in which they are detained are in such a state that yesterday, during heavy rain, the prisoners had to shelter themselves under umbrellas.
" Many of them suffer from rheumatism and other ailments. They are deprived of every necessary, not being permitted oven to procure food at their own expense, but being dependent on the prison rations."
On December 4th following 0 Dia published also an inter- view with Dr. Jost d'Arucla, who is the republican advocate who defended the officers and men implicated in the revolt of January 28th, 1908. Dr. d'Arucla expressed himself in the following terms :- " The manner in which those detained on political charges have been treated is shameful. I have visited clients in the fort of Alto do Duque, in the Castle of St. George, and at Caxias. In all these prisons those arrested are detained under the most abominable hygienic conditions and treated with the most revolting cruelty. Hundreds of men have been in prison for three or four months on vague charges without ever having been intorrogated as to their means of defence or brought before a tribunal."
II is not matter for surprise that one of the latest outrages of Carbonario apaches took place at the offices of 0 Dia, where piles of copies of the paper were set on fire. In 0 Capital there was reproduced on October 23rd last a conversation between a foreign journalist and Senhor G. Chagas in which the following sentences occur: "The number of conspirators arrested reaches to about two thousand. We may estimate that approximately a third of them are innocent." If this calculation is—as reliable information confirms it to be—correct, there are then some seven hundred miserable beings subjected unjustly to the most inhuman treatment. The situation cannot prolong itself.—I am, Sir, [Those who in their blind hatred of the Russian Govern- ment talk and act as if Russia were the only Power from which the cry of the political prisoner goes up should not forget the case of Portugal. They should remember also that Portugal is our ally, and that we undertake to defend all her possessions at home and abroad from attack. 'We are thus guaranteeing a'Government which allows virtual slavery oversee and acts towards its political prisoners in the manner described above. It is a delusion to suppose that a republic is more merciful than an autocracy. Governmental titles are quite unim- portant .—En. Spectator.]
Previous page
