The protest has an electronic public petition "Against the Neonazi conference of 10 August in Lisbon", which had gathered 3,974 signatures to date.

The signatures are promoting a merger, which they called a "national anti-fascist mobilization" for Saturday at 1:00 pm in Lisbon, on the same day as the "nationalist conference" organized by the far right group `New Social Order 'led by the already convicted of various racial crimes Mário Machado.

"The holding, on 10 August, in Lisbon, of a meeting of far-right organizations from Europe, some admittedly of fascist and neo-Nazi ideology, motivated the convening of a protest demonstration for the same day and place by a front of national and international organizations" says the petition.

Addressed to the President of the Assembly of the Republic, the President of the Constitutional Court, the Minister of Justice, parliamentary groups and party leaderships, the petition calls for them to take a stand and prevent the meeting from being held.

“It's a cry of citizenship. The objective is to make a public warning about the meeting of openly declared racist organizations, whose existence in itself is an affront to the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic" defended the leader of SOS Racism, Mamadou Ba, in statements to Lusa.

The leader of SOS Racism, who joined the protest manifesto, argued that "the authorities themselves must act" and desired "a firm hand, because some of those who come here advocate racial violence", stressing that "racism it is an ideology that kills and no ideology that kills should be publicized”.

For the Union of Alternative Women and Response (UMAR), the leader Joana Sales told Lusa that her association subscribed to the manifesto because it "always fights for democratic values ??and a neo-Nazi manifestation does not fight for those values".

“We don’t even understand how such a thing is legal. I am not a lawyer, but the state should not allow this, an event of groups that appeal directly to violence. It seems to me clearly unconstitutional. We are publicizing the initiative and we will participate.” she said.

In the text of the public petition, the prosecutors “also demand that the political parties take a clear position” and call for “the mobilization of all citizens, parties, unions, movements and organizations so that on 10 August 2019 the Portuguese people leave a clear message to the European neo-Nazis.”

Police source had already told Lusa that the Security Intelligence Service (SIS) is following the “nationalist conference very closely” which will have representatives of European parties and movements, and seven speakers have already been confirmed: Mário Machado, Josele Sanchez (Spain), Adrianna Gasiorek (Poland), Blagovest Asenov (Bulgaria), Francesca Rizzi (Italy), Mattias Deyda (Germany), Yvan Benedetti (France).

The organizers of the nationalist conference only want to disclose the venue of their event, scheduled for 2 pm on the same day at 9 am, according to the far-right group "New Social Order" on the Internet.

The 2018 Annual Internal Security Report (RASI) states that the Portuguese far right continued last year to “show great dynamism in the fight for the 'conquest' of Europe, namely in the fight against illegal immigration, the Islamization, multiculturalism and cultural Marxism.”

According to RASI, the identity and neo-fascist sector stood out again in 2018 through the organization of conferences, propaganda actions, symbolic date celebrations, protest actions, musical events and martial arts training sessions, in a “perfect alignment with the European counterparts, with whom it had frequent contacts”.

The neo-Nazi 'skinhead' trend was 'less active' but retained its traditional activities, such as concerts and meetings, and occasionally associated with the initiatives of the identity and neo-fascist movement, the RASI points out, noting that the far right has “intensely spread” propaganda in a virtual environment, with the objective of creating favourable conditions for the electoral success of nationalist or populist political forces in 2019”.