Portugal Awards Medal to Newspaper "Expresso" for Promoting Democracy and Freedom

The free press can be the engine and catalyst for radical global transformations, the same way the newspaper Expresso did in Portugal 50 years ago, with social changes that ended the dictatorship and established democracy and political freedom.

On January 6, the Portuguese President, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, awarded Expresso a medal of the Order of Liberty (or Order of Freedom), that distinguishes relevant services to the cause of democracy and freedom, in defense of the values of civilization and human dignity.

Portugal—the country of origin of the current secretary-general of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres—will mark only its 50th year as a democracy next year.

In addition to other factors, the 48-year long dictatorship in Portugal (1926-1974) saw a formidable foe in Expresso, which celebrated its 50th year in circulation on January 6.

U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres, Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, and Expresso founder Francisco Pinto Balsemao.

The historic date was commemorated with a conference in Lisbon, where Guterres said that the freedom of press has a vital role in radically changing the world, that it finds itself at a “dead end,” towards a better multilateral dynamic, with solidarity, mutual respect and comprehension between all people.

The founder of Expresso, Francisco Pinto Balsemao, also declared that a free press has a “relevant role to play” for a better future—especially in an era of “digital acceleration”—while “denouncing [the] disinformation.”

Guterres painted a dreary vision of the current world, in which “geopolitical divisions and the dramatic increase of inequalities have created progressive breaches of trust and have broken mechanisms of solidarity.”

“Freedom of press is an essential vector” for the promotion of civic and political rights, and is indispensable for much needed “profound transformations in the power relations on a global scale,” stated Guterres.

Guterres—born in Portugal and a former prime-minister of the country, was also one of Expresso’s first shareholders.

Guterres said the country was a “blind alley” in the throes of the dictatorship, with a lackluster economy and high rates of emigration and with no end in sight to the armed conflicts happening in the territories under Portugal’s rule, such as Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique.

Expresso “emerged as a project whose goal was to help find a way out of this alley,” Guterres argued, recalling his “faith in the capacity of the newspaper to be an engine of transformation that the country needed.”

Even under press censorship, Expresso helped people form opinions and want different things, helped bring attention to social problems and helped instigate a feeling of power in the Portuguese people and a need for change.

The first year of the newspaper was always full of risk and uncertainty, until April 1974, when a peaceful coup ended the dictatorship. Founder Balsemao recalled a time when newsrooms had to send several copies of their pages to government officials prior to publication. The censors would cross out all the forbidden words and phrases with a blue pencil, while what was approved for publication was marked in red.

Censorship was disguised under different designations, including the latest censorial law in 1972, “The Law of the Press,” a change from “Prior Censorship,” which itself was a change to “Preliminary Examination.”

Members of the audience in attendance during the ceremony.

Portuguese democracy was ushered in on April 25, 1974 thanks to the “Carnation Revolution,” a peaceful military coup that overthrew the dictatorship and remains forever symbolized by the image of red carnations inside rifles, for guns were not necessary. Since then, the expression “April Portugal” or “Portugal of April '' signifies a free and democratic country.

Portuguese President Sousa, who was also one of the newspaper’s first shareholders, stated during the half-century anniversary conference that Expresso had three initial ideas at its core: Decolonize, Democratize and Develop.

The same ideas can be applied to our days, claimed Sousa, stating that “it is necessary to recreate Portuguese democracy,” with special attention to the current weakness and economic fragility of the media.

Sousa said it is necessary to develop a “new economic regime for the future” of Portugal to drastically reduce the number of people who are considered poor: currently, there are two million people in poverty in a country with a total population of 10.3 million.

Sousa recalled that 50 years ago Expresso was able to form a “very broad coalition” between all social and economic segments of Portuguese population, which required a “titanic effort” by Balsemao, who was 34 years old at the time.

Expresso has been the best-selling newspaper in Portugal for six years, with almost 95,000 copies sold weekly, according to the Portuguese association for print and circulation control, APCT.