The mayor of Lisbon, Fernando Medina, publicly apologized after it became known that the city authorities handed over the personal data of the participants of the rally in support of Alexei Navalny to the Russian Embassy in Portugal.
This is reported by Publico.
According to local law, the organizers of a rally in Lisbon must submit to the Mayor’s office the contact details of at least three organizers. This data is then passed on to the police.
Three organizers of the protest (with dual citizenship, Russian and Portuguese) appealed to the city council with a request to hold a demonstration in front of the Russian Embassy in Lisbon. They provided various personal details, including name, address, identification number, and phone number.
Subsequently, the Portuguese media learned that the municipality sent this data to the Russian authorities.
“A sad mistake in all respects, which should not have happened: personal data was transferred to the embassy,” the mayor said.
Medina said that he had personally spoken to the organizers of the demonstration, justifying the incident by saying that this information was transmitted in a bureaucratic way: first to the Public Security Police (PSP), and then to the organization where the demonstration was planned. In this case, the Russian Embassy.
“It was a bureaucratic mistake. In this case, this information could not and should not have been transmitted, “ he said, adding that the municipality had changed procedures to prevent such situations from happening again.
The mayor also spoke about concerns about the safety of citizens, information about which is now at the disposal of the Russian government. “I hope that everything will go its own way. Some of them are Portuguese citizens under the protection of the Portuguese authorities, “ he said.
