The Jewish Community of Oporto on Thursday announced that the granddaughter of a Jewish Portuguese army officer has filed a complaint at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The complaint alleges that Portugal violated the European Convention on Human Rights after it wrongfully dismissed her grandfather from the army and failed to reinstate his military rank.

Isabel Barros Lopes, the granddaughter of Captain Arthur Carlos Barros Basto, claimed that Portugal violated Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees every individual the right to a fair trial decided within a reasonable period of time. Barros Lopes said the army wrongfully dismissed Barros Basto from the service due to antisemitic motives. Her family’s case for justice had been rejected until 2013, when the Portuguese army proposed to retroactively reinstate Barros Basto to the rank of colonel, which is the position he would have held in 1945.

The authorities, however, have not followed up on their promise to reinstate Barros Bastos. In 2023, for instance, the Portuguese state insisted that Barros Basto should personally request reinstatement. Barros Lopes called this move “an absurdity,” stating that her grandfather would have been 136 years old at that time.

Barros Basto was a Jewish former army captain who died in 1961. The Jewish community of Porto calls him “the Portuguese Alfred Dreyfus,” a reference to a French army captain who was wrongfully convicted of treason. Barros Basto intended to establish a religious community during the nationalist and Catholic conservative regime of dictator Oliveira Salazar. Against this background, albeit acquitted of charges of homosexuality, Barros Basto was found guilty by an Army Disciplinary Counsel of carrying out circumcisions, rendering him “morally unsuited to the prestige of his office and the decorum of his uniform.” The Jewish Community of Oporto claimed this was a mere “pretext for the state to dismiss a Jewish officer from army service.”