The Jewish Community of Oporto on Thursday announced that the granddaughter of a Jewish Portuguese army officer filed a complaint at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The complaint alleged that Portugal violated the European Convention on Human Rights after it wrongfully dismissed her grandfather, Captain Arthur Carlos Barros Basto, from the army and failed to reinstate his military rank (announcement).
Isabel Barros Lopes, the granddaughter, claimed that Portugal violated Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees every individual the right to a fair trial decided within a reasonable period of time. Barros Lopes said the army dismissed Barros Basto due to antisemitic motives.
Efforts to seek justice had been stymied until 2013 when the Portuguese army proposed to retroactively reinstate Barros Basto to the rank of colonel, the position he would have held in 1945. However, the authorities have not followed up on this promise. In 2023, the Portuguese state insisted that Barros Basto should personally request reinstatement, a move Barros Lopes called an “absurdity,” given her grandfather would have been 136 years old at that time (source).
Barros Basto, who died in 1961, was a Jewish army captain likened to French army captain Alfred Dreyfus, who was wrongfully convicted of treason. While Barros Basto was acquitted of charges of homosexuality, he was found guilty by an Army Disciplinary Counsel of carrying out circumcisions, leading to his dismissal for being “morally unsuited to the prestige of his office and the decorum of his uniform.” The Jewish Community of Oporto claimed this was a pretext for dismissing a Jewish officer from the army.
The complex and prolonged case underscores the persistence of antisemitic sentiments and the long-lasting consequences of such prejudices within military and state institutions. The family seeks to rectify these historical wrongs through their complaint before the ECHR.
For further details, see the original article on JURIST.