Bissau, May 29, 2025 (Lusa) - On Thursday, Guinea-Bissau's President Umaro Sissoco Embaló lamented Portugal's lack of sensitivity to religious issues when it decided to seize 353 passports from pilgrims from his country who were due to travel to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
"It is regrettable. I understand that they were not sensitive in seizing the passports," Sissoco Embaló told reporters on the sidelines of the inauguration ceremony for the president and vice-president of the Supreme Court of Justice.
Last week, the Public Security Police seized 353 Guinean passports at Lisbon airport from a man who was transporting them from Bissau to Brussels.
Guinea-BIssau's foreign minister, Carlos Pinto Pereira, said on Monday that the passports were "legitimate, issued by the authorities" in Bissau and intended for pilgrims who were due to fly from Belgium to Saudi Arabia.
Pinto Pereira stated that he was not claiming the Portuguese authorities' actions were discriminatory, but regretted the manner in which the country's media had handled the Guinea-Bissau issue.
"The government of Guinea-Bissau does not want to think that these are discriminatory measures, because this is not the first time that when someone who is not of Catholic origin, someone who is, for example, of Muslim origin, is in power, the news is usually biased," he said.
Umaro Sissoco Embaló said today that he agreed with Carlos Pinto Pereira because "every time" Guinea-Bissau has a Muslim president, "there are situations of hostility", particularly on the part of the Portuguese media.
"I don't want to say that there is hostility from Portugal, because that doesn't mean much to me, but it happened with Malam Bacai Sanha, with Serifo Nhamadjo, and now the same thing is happening with Umaro Sissoco Embaló," said the Guinean president, referring to Muslim heads of state.
Sissoco Embaló noted that the passport issue should be handled with "sensitivity and prudence" due to its sensitivity, as it concerns matters related to people's religion.
“This means that this is not a republic of Christians or Muslims. It is the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, a secular country like Portugal, but whenever we have a Muslim president, Portugal acts differently, or the Portuguese media does. Here I agree with the foreign minister,” Embaló stressed.
The Guinean president considered the situation "incomprehensible", especially at a time when relations between Guinea-Bissau and Portugal have moved beyond these issues.
"The issue of pilgrimage is very sensitive anywhere in the world. We do not play with the issue of religion, so people have failed because they were provided with all kinds of documentation, and the Portuguese Foreign Ministry also provided documents to the Public Prosecutor's Office, which was not sensitive," lamented the Guinean head of state.
According to Sissoco Embaló, the situation has now been resolved.
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