Portugal: 18 police officers accused of torture and racism to 6 black kids.

[Mike88]

In an unprecedented case in Portugal, the DA office has charged 18 police officers with accusations of torture and racism to six black kids from Cova da Moura, a Lisbon suburb. The case happened in February 2015 when a young black man was arested by the police in Cova da Moura. The police said that he threw stones to their patrol car but the DA says that's false. The officers arested him but beat him violently and insulted him. After that, five of his friends went to the police station to ask for informations about their friend but were also arested and insulted by the police.

The DA says that the six kids were brutally humiliated and beaten by the police without any reason other than racial intentions. The DA also accuses the police of forging reports about this case.

I'm a bit shocked by this. Cova da Moura is a very poor suburb of Lisbon where a large Cabo Verdian community lives. Reports of racial clashes sometimes surge in the media, but this is quite disturbing.

[Mike88]

Interesting report from the BBC about race in Portugal:

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32419952

The media is strongly covering this story and race is, once again, being discussed.

[Mike88]

Places less culturally diverse are far more racist than culturally diverse places like America, but less explicitly so because there isn't as much a chance of an incident.

You're basically right. Race in Portugal is tabu. Politicians are afraid to talk about it and people in general are aware of the lack of integration in Portugal but don't wanna talk about it. We don't even know the real number of Afro-Portuguese residents. The official estimate is around 150,000 but some say the real number is around a 1,000,000. If this is true, we don't know as the Census doesn't have questions about race, Portugal has almost the same share of black population as the US. And its not like there's few incidents but people just don't wanna talk about it. It sad actually.