The defense of Human Rights requires coherence. Not because international contexts are equivalent, but because the principles invoked cannot vary depending on political affinities with the actors involved. When this happens, the credibility of political discourse weakens. It is at this level that the position taken by Catarina Martins in the European Parliament must be analyzed.
In January 2026, a resolution was voted that condemned the repression carried out by the Iranian regime on its own population, denouncing arbitrary arrests, executions and violent repression of civil protests. The text was approved by a large majority. The Portuguese deputy chose to abstain. The decision was justified with reservations regarding the political framework of the resolution (!), namely the risk of geopolitical instrumentalization and the selectivity with which, in its opinion, the European Union condemns violations of Human Rights.
This is a politically legitimate position. The problem lies in its concrete effect: the absence of a clear condemnation at a time when state repression in Iran was widely documented. At that time, Human Rights organizations and independent journalistic investigations reported thousands of deaths, in a context of censorship, information blocking and information concealment. The disagreements concerned exact numbers, not the massive and systematic nature of the repression.
The contrast becomes more evident when looking at other public positions of the same deputy. Catarina Martins has expressed political support for the flotillas to Gaza, presented as civil solidarity initiatives, despite there being public references and investigations that raise serious suspicions about some of their financiers and organizers, including links to networks under investigation for terrorist financing. In this regard, not a single word to distance oneself from these issues. As if they didn’t exist.
Basically, it is not about comparing tragedies, nor about placing suffering in a hierarchy. This is a criterion. When the risk of instrumentalization justifies prudence in one case and is relativized in another, the defense of Human Rights ceases to be universal and becomes selective. And a selective foreign policy, even if well-intentioned, loses moral authority.
Assistant professor at the Autonomous University of Lisbon and researcher (at CIDEHUS).
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