An Appeal on Behalf of Goncalo Amaral and Madeleine McCann

In a civil action, a Portuguese court, at the behest of Kate and Gerry McCann, ordered in 2009
that the assets of ex police coordinator, Goncalo Amaral, be seized. And to this day, remain seized.

This, as you can well imagine, has resulted in great personal hardship for Goncalo Amaral, his ability to effectively defend himself and to further seek the truth about the fate of Madeleine McCann.

If you feel affronted by this unprecedented attack on the freedom of speech, the civil and human rights of both Goncalo Amaral and Madeleine McCann, then might I ask you, if you are so disposed, to make a contribution to the defence fund of Goncalo Amaral.

In doing so, not only will you be helping fight an injustice of epic proportions, but ultimately you will help bring about justice for Madeleine McCann.

The same justice for Madeleine, that Goncalo Amaral has championed since 2007.

Thank You.

http://pjga.blogspot.pt/ About (Paypal)

http://www.gofundme.com/legal-defencepjga (credit card)

Which only leaves me to gladly throw another few bob into the pot.

Brits raise thousands for Maddie cop’s libel appeal
Portugalpress May 07, 2015

After what many consider the bombshell of a judicial decision – setting record damages for a private Portuguese citizen – British supporters of former PJ inspector Gonçalo Amaral are rallying en-masse to a “gofundme” online appeal – started intriguingly by a young British woman who was only 14 when Madeleine McCann went missing. In less than a week, 22-year-old Leanne Baulch’s appeal has raised over £9,200. British media has slated it – suggesting it is powered by “sick online trolls”. The Resident follows this fast-developing story which shows no sign of losing pace.

If anything, the impetus now is to find a “high-profile donor” – someone “prepared to underwrite the legal costs” that Amaral faces as he appeals against the judge’s decision that awarded record damages against him in the long-running civil action for defamation taken out by the McCanns over his book The Truth of the Lie.

Slapping Amaral with a bill that tops €600,000 all told, Express on Sunday suggested at the weekend that Judge Emília Melo e Castro has effectively “ruined and shamed” the man who led the original police investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance.

The Sun was equally scathing, describing 56-year-old Amaral as a “lie cop” in its exposé of what it described as a “sick online campaign”.

But the publicity seems to have “backfired”, Leanne Baulch tells us.

One couldn’t say people are digging “deep” into their pockets, as many donations are for small amounts – but it is certainly a “mass fork out”, with multiple commentaries refuting mainstream media’s slur that these people are “trolls”.

A donor by the name of Emma Mitchell, giving £100, wrote: “Shame on you The Sun… Keep fighting GA, Madeleine deserves justice and so do you.”

Another added her contribution, saying: “From yet another ‘nasty internet troll’ keep on fighting GA, we are behind you all the way.”

Comments on stories posted on our portugalresident.com website also show readers reacting to the insinuation that “anyone who questions the abduction theory” is a troll.

Calling it a “total disgrace”, Jayne Staveley suggests that The Sun’s reporters “are still in primary school”.

But the tragedy behind these comments is that while Madeleine’s parents have always maintained their civil action against Amaral was “never about the money”, it is now becoming more and more clear how important a role money has taken on in this case.

Miss Baulch’s appeal – an extension of the long-running Portuguese “Projecto Justiça Gonçalo Amaral” fund to which she stresses she has “no access whatsoever” – has set out to raise £25,000. As we wrote, donations were steadily flowing in, with over 500 people having raised £9,205 in six days.

Questioned about whether she imagined she would get such a response, the single-mother from Birmingham told us: “I had no idea. I was just desperate to help. I didn’t expect the media to get involved. The Sun and Express reporting shocked me, but it backfired!”

McCann “hate dossier” will “not result in any prosecutions”

As Amaral is thus buoyed by this latest bid to raise money to help him, British media has been carrying 8th anniversary “Madeleine disappearance” stories, including new “revelations” about a string of burglaries on the Praia da Luz resort from which Madeleine went missing.

These burglaries are presented as adding weight to the British police theory that Madeleine may have been abducted as a result of a botched burglary.

But noteworthy when considering mainstream media’s preoccupation with “vile trolls” is the report by Sky news, coming in last week, that the so-called “hate dossier” that hit the headlines eight months ago is not going to result in any prosecutions.

The dossier – which led to the suicide of grandmother Brenda Leyland after she was ‘outed’ as a so-called troll on live television – had been delivered to Leicester Police by what Sky described as an “anonymous source”.

Keenly involved in the story, Sky’s crime expert Martin Brunt claimed that the anonymous source (or sources) have reacted with “absolute dismay” at the decision not to prosecute.

“They say it is tantamount to giving trolls carte blanche to carry on abusing the McCanns,” he wrote.

“Although we haven’t heard directly from the McCanns, I’m sure they too will be astonished because… Gerry McCann said such trolls should be prosecuted.”

As we wrote this story, a new comment appeared on the gofundme site, signed from “MA”: “Dr Amaral, my pledge is to pay an apology fine for every article I see that is biased and un-factual on your behalf. Today’s fine is on behalf of the Express for their use of “troll” “shamed” and “sickening”. source

By Natasha Donn natasha.donn@algarveresident.com

Maddie cop’s legal fund “well on the way” to the €25,000 target
Portugal Press on May 11, 2015
By Natasha Donn

Within 11 days, the British fighting fund set up to help the former policeman dubbed by UK media as the “Maddie Lie Cop” has reached over €13,000.

The target - set by young psychology student Leanne Baulch who was only 14 at the time Madeleine McCann went missing - is now less than €11,000 away, and donations are coming in bit by bit every few hours.

The extraordinary aspect of this latest appeal is that it has been taken up by so many and no matter what the size of donations, people show their feelings that Amaral has been “badly treated” for reasons no-one appears able to fathom.
Indeed, the €500,000 damages set by judge Emília Melo e Castro, plus the further €106,000 in interest - all destined to compensate the parents of Madeleine for the distress Amaral’s book The Truth of the Lie caused them - are reported to be the highest ever awarded against a Portuguese citizen.

With questions constantly appearing on the fund website asking “what is being covered up”, Brits are giving in droves, with donors ranging from grandparents to young people who were teenagers at the time Madeleine went missing.
One of the most recent of the 819 givers was grandmother Kathleen Conell who deposited her £50 saying: “I worry about your safety and only wish someone wealthy with courage would adopt your cause. The corruption in both the UK and Portuguese establishments must be stopped. Democracy is finished otherwise.”

As this latest example of “people-power” righting what they see is a wrong plays out, the mainstream British media is making much of the so-called string of burglaries that appears to have taken place on the resort from which Madeleine went missing just over eight years ago.

Sunday Express writer James Murray has written that British police “have established a pattern of attacks on children in the Algarve… which could lead to a host of other sordid crimes being solved”.

It’s a line that has surfaced every now and then in this infinite mystery and which many query, as if there truly had been a spate of attacks on children in the Algarve, the feeling is that local and national media would have heard about them.
As a source told us this week, what were originally described as “five or six cases, then morphed into over a dozen and suddenly exploded into 30 cases or so, if we are to believe the UK media”.

Meantime, the instigator of the British appeal fund raising money for Amaral’s appeal tells us she has been approached by a number of UK newspapers, but none of them are keen to write about her effort until it reaches the €25,000 target. source