Lisbon, July 24, 2025 (Lusa Verifica) - SIC didn't “censor” or “hide” an interview with a Spanish “youtuber” who was covering a protest in Torre Pacheco, Spain. Part of the statements were included in a report.
+++ CLAIM: "SIC censored an interview" with a Spanish “youtuber” +++
On Monday, a Spanish “youtuber” accused SIC of having censored an interview with him on the 15th in Torre Pacheco, Spain, during a protest against alleged insecurity in the city. "The Portuguese television channel SIC, which is a kind of “La Sexta” in Portugal, did a short interview with me and, as my speech was completely contrary to the official one, they didn't publish it," says Adrián de Oliveira, author of the RescueYou channel.
The complaint was made on the secondary channel Rescue2You, where the “youtuber” shares the video of the moment of the interview (suggested by himself), which lasts around four minutes, and adds that "Portuguese youtubers (...) weren't at all surprised that it wasn't published", claiming that SIC only showed "the reporter talking about “extreme right” and “racism”": https://archive.is/an88x.
Two days later, on Wednesday, Marcus Santos, a Chega MP, complained on X that "the Portuguese television channel with a far-left bias, SIC, went to Torre-Pacheco, in Spain, and had contact with the true reality of what is happening there", but, "for ideological reasons, they are incapable of broadcasting this interview" (https://archive.ph/6WtB0), he writes in a publication in which he shares a comment by a Chega supporter, published the day before on TikTok (https://archive.is/Srmko).
Shortly afterwards, the Chega leader also shared the video of the interview on social media, in a message insinuating that the footage had not been broadcast on SIC. "I bet this was hidden and not shown on Portuguese television...", wrote André Ventura on Facebook, Instagram and X, where he has already clocked up over 900,000 views: https://archive.ph/ZUsAy, https://archive.is/Vq5tq and https://archive.ph/hJZ1x (the latter has since been deleted).
This was followed at the end of the day by MP Pedro Frazão, who shared André Ventura's post, adding: "The report I've never seen aired on @SICNoticias... why is that?" (https://archive.ph/SHzmi and https://archive.ph/7Gpyl). These gestures, especially that of André Ventura, earned the “youtuber” a thank you on Instagram (https://archive.is/YQp4q).
+++ Facts: SIC aired part of the interview in a report lasting more than nine minutes +++
A consultation of the SIC Notícias website allows us to identify all the works written by the journalist in question, Conceição Ribeiro, and to locate three recent reports carried out in Torre Pacheco, Spain, following the disturbances triggered by an attack on an elderly resident by a group of three Moroccans, an incident that resulted in acts of violence against migrants: https://archive.is/eDTpQ.
Upon viewing, it is possible to see that the images of the interview with Adrián de Oliveira were indeed broadcast by SIC, although not in full. The report shown on Saturday, 19th, on SIC's Jornal da Noite included around 30 seconds of the interview: https://archive.ph/4PKlm (at 03:36), including references to his work as a “youtuber” and to far-right parties.
In the SIC report, which lasts nine minutes and 22 seconds, the journalist heard from 11 people, with the excerpt from the interview with Adrián being one of the four that took up the most time, and the piece included testimonies from all sensibilities, including residents, migrants, “youtubers” and the mayor.
In the full video published by the “youtuber”, with around 11,000 views, the recording of which is also included in the live broadcast of more than four hours that he made in Torre Pacheco (https://archive.ph/xT9sQ), Adrián identifies himself as Portuguese, claims to have lived in Setúbal, explains that he is the author of the RescueYou channel and says that he is in Torre Pacheco just to "document independently". However, he assumes that he also wants to "support the population due to the insecurity they suffer".
When asked by the SIC journalist what he thinks of this insecurity, Adrián de Oliveira shared ideas present in the xenophobic and racist discourse against migrants.
"Refugees and illegal immigrants are being distributed throughout Spain. And that causes problems, security problems, because they are incompatible cultures, because they are people who come illegally, don't know the language and don't adapt. They are culturally opposed to us," he says.
Among the examples of maladaptation, he points to practices of "female genital mutilation, more and more sexual assaults, rapes and insecurity in the streets" because "we are importing certain cultures that are completely archaic and incompatible with the West". He also complains that unaccompanied foreign minors (“menas”) are not minors, nor are they refugees, because he only sees "adult men", and believes that these are issues that parties like Chega, Vox, AFD and others don't talk about "out of whim, but because the population has a certain demand for these issues."
The same Adrián de Oliveira was accused of harassing several journalists present at Torre Pacheco, particularly from public organisations such as TVE and stations he accused of receiving public subsidies (https://archive.ph/nn7TB and https://archive.is/8qG2x). In fact, in the live broadcast of more than four hours, followed by more than 40,000 people, he acknowledged that he wanted to “troll” one of the journalists (first video in this section: https://archive.ph/xT9sQ, at 22:10) and on several occasions filmed the chest of another Telecinco journalist.
Some of these media outlets have also identified him as an "ultra agitator" (https://archive.is/97jay), a frequent designation in the Spanish media, especially concerning recent episodes at press conferences in the Spanish Congress, where Adrián is accused of being one of the details close to the extreme right that disrupt the work of real parliamentary journalists (https://archive.is/O1zef), which is why the Congress regulations were recently revised: https://archive.is/XS1Jc.
+++ Contradictory: +++
On social media, the “youtuber” denies having harassed journalists (https://archive.ph/gQVZw) and in written replies sent to Lusa Verifica maintains that "the interview was censored because it was never published on SIC". He even says that he checked "if the interview was published on SIC after it was recorded, but it wasn't, it was never published anywhere." As for his connection to Portugal, he explains that "he lived in Portugal when he was 7 years old" because he has Portuguese family on his father's side, hence the surname Oliveira.
Lusa Verifica also contacted the SIC journalist, who regrets what she considers to be manipulation. "Neither Adrián nor any details of Chega contacted me. I'm also not in the habit of valuing comments on social media - positive or negative," says Conceição Ribeiro.
Even so, she clarifies that "part of the interview in question was integrated into a piece shown on the 19th, but there were others that weren't used", but considers that "none of this is censorship". "It's about applying journalistic criteria and managing the size of the report," because "it's not always possible - due to relevance or space - to use all the interviews we do," she explains.
In this case, the journalist considered it "relevant to address the issue of the coverage of the situation by various YouTube channels", such as Adrián's, and regrets "the lack of seriousness and possible bad faith of the criticisms", adding that "reality disproves manipulation."
The office of the Chega parliamentary group was also contacted on Thursday morning, but Lusa Verifica received no reply. The only reaction was to delete the tweet from André Ventura's X account, although the same content is still available on the Chega president's other social networks.
+++ Lusa Verifica assessment: False +++
It is false that SIC censored an interview with a Spanish “youtuber” associated with the far right, as denounced by him and several Chega leaders. The station showed part of the statements in a report aired on 19 July, which can be viewed online.
LYGA/ADB // ADB.
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