Description
At the end of the 20th century, extreme right violence was closely linked to the arrival in Portugal of the skinhead subculture, which joined the already existing nationalist organisation MAN (Movimento de Acção Nacional / Movement of National Action). At the beginning of the new millennium, the skinhead movement was strengthened by the creation of the PHS (Portugal Hammer Skin), which, for a brief period, appeared at the forefront of the nationalist. This paper examines how the violent actions carried out by these organisations (including murders, destruction of patrimony and numerous inter-ethnic assaults) were treated by the Portuguese judicial system and what lessons can be learned regarding broader efforts to counter extreme right violence. The MAN had to answer accusations related to their fascist ideology, which differed from the strategy to prosecute the PHS. In this case, the public prosecutor tried to demonstrate that this extreme right network constituted a structured racist organisation and that all the episodes of imputed criminality were part of an organic strategy of a racist nature. Thus, there were no accusations of being a fascist subversive organisation such as in the case of the MAN.
