The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine will not attend the Portuguese Communist Party festival starting Friday in Seixal.
The Portuguese Communist Party announced that the group, classified as a terrorist organization by the European Union, failed to meet required conditions to participate in the gathering.
Other invited components of the Palestine Liberation Organization will also be absent from the event, the party added. Those delegations include Fatah and the Palestinian People's Party.
The annual Festa do Avante opens this Friday at Quinta da Atalaia in Seixal and runs through Sunday. Quinta da Atalaia is a venue in Seixal, a municipality located in the Setúbal District on the south bank of the Tagus River opposite Lisbon.
Absence of Palestinian delegations
The Portuguese Communist Party stated that the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine had not gathered conditions to attend this year's gathering. The political party did not provide further details on the specific criteria that were not satisfied.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine is a secular Marxist-Leninist Palestinian political and militant organization founded in 1967. The European Union lists the movement on its official roster of designated terrorist organizations.
The Palestine Liberation Organization serves as an umbrella coalition representing various Palestinian political factions internationally. Fatah remains the largest political group within the coalition, while the Palestinian People's Party operates as a socialist political movement.
PCP leadership response
Portuguese Communist Party leader Paulo Raimundo downplayed the controversy regarding the Palestinian group. He described the festival as a space for the affirmation of hope.
Paulo Raimundo serves as the General Secretary of the Portuguese Communist Party, a major political party on the Portuguese political left. The party organizes the festival each September as its major public political and cultural event.
The three-day festival at Quinta da Atalaia features political meetings, international stalls, and musical performances running through Sunday.
