This position is stated in an open letter addressed to the Government and the Assembly of the Republic of Portugal and published the day before Foreign Minister Paulo Rangel is set to be heard in parliament during a session scheduled for Tuesday.
The hearing of Paulo Rangel was requested by the Socialist Party (PS) and approved by the Foreign Affairs and Portuguese Communities Commission, where the head of Portuguese diplomacy will be questioned. It concerns a flight that took place on December 14, 2025, which included the wife of the outgoing President of Guinea-Bissau, Umaro Sissoco Embaló, and his chief of protocol, during which approximately five million euros in cash were seized.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Lusa at the time that “the designation as a state flight was due to the fact that the person involved is the spouse of a head of state (and the spouse has the right to protocol treatment at the same level as the head of state)”.
The Political Movement of Guinean Students and Workers “Firkidja di Pubis” demands, in the open letter, “political and institutional clarification regarding the classification of the flight and the criteria adopted by the Portuguese state for that purpose”.
For the movement, “the problem is not limited to the seized amount, which raises serious suspicions of smuggling and money laundering,” but “also lies in the actions of the Portuguese state, marked by severe opacity and politically unjustifiable behavior”.
In the open letter, it argues that the Portuguese government’s position did not clarify why the flight was classified as a “state flight” when this occurred after the coup in which the military took power on November 26, 2025, “outside the Constitution and against the expressed will of the people at the polls”.
It was also unclear why protocol status was granted to someone who holds no institutional position (…) nor why Portugal complied with a request from a coup regime that it should not recognize, much less normalize,” it adds.
The movement reminds that it is “against this backdrop of political and institutional doubts that the minister of foreign affairs’ hearing occurs” and argues that this “hearing cannot, however, be limited to technical or administrative clarifications”.
“The case of the flight is not an isolated incident. It exposes the risk of continuation of a posture of complacency by the Portuguese state towards the authoritarianism of Umaro Sissoco Embaló,” it argues.
The statement issued by the Portuguese government calling for a return to constitutional order in Guinea-Bissau is considered by the movement “insufficient unless accompanied by concrete actions”.
In this regard, it explains, “this letter aims to prompt the Government and the Assembly of the Republic of Portugal to use this political moment, including the hearing of the foreign minister, not only to clarify the case of the flight but to take a clear, coherent, and consequential stance of the Portuguese state”.
The movement asks the Portuguese government “for firm support for the position of the European Parliament, emerged from its session on December 18, 2025,” and appeals “for the adoption of individual sanctions against the political and military leaders of the coup and active engagement by Portugal with the European Union for the suspension of agreements and partnerships that contribute to financing or legitimizing the coup-installed power in Guinea-Bissau.”
