Two GNR agents from Quarteira were behind a controversial video that went viral yesterday and showed a sex worker being “forced to salute”. The two men are facing “disciplinary proceedings” and will be transferred to GNR’s Faro command.
The video was revealed yesterday by Correio da Manhã tabloid, which led the GNR to release a statement saying it was investigating the case.
The footage shows the two law enforcement officials using a megaphone to tell the woman to salute before they stop the car on a road that links Quarteira to the EN125 and ask her “how her work is going”.
The woman continues to salute until one of the agents quips that she can be “at ease, but not too at ease” before they finally drive off.
Just hours later after the GNR’s initial statement, a follow-up was sent out to the press revealing that the two agents had been identified as members of the GNR’s Loulé force and were facing disciplinary proceedings.
Both officers will be transferred to GNR’s Faro command as “their presence in the area where the case was reported is considered incompatible with the decency and discipline” that GNR agents should be known for.
The police force says that it will not “tolerate this kind of behaviour, which goes against the standards” of how agents should act.
It adds that this was a one-off situation and that it does not “represent the behaviour of the 23,000 women and men who, on a daily basis, make the GNR a prestigious institution”.
CM adds that its reporters drove along the road on Wednesday but did not find the sex worker in question, but that other sex workers in the area said they thought “the whole thing was a joke” and that they had also been asked to salute in the past.
