The Minister of National Defense, Nuno Melo, will be heard in parliament on Wednesday about compulsory military service as an alternative penalty for young people who commit minor offenses, at the request of Chega and the Liberal Initiative. According to the official website of the Assembly of the Republic on the Internet, the hearing of the centrist Nuno Melo will take place after the plenary session, at 6:00 pm. These requests were presented and unanimously approved by the members of the parliamentary Defense Committee after Nuno Melo defended on April 27, at the 13th edition of the Europa University, in Aveiro, that compulsory military service could be an alternative for young people who commit minor offenses instead of being placed in institutions that, "in most cases, only work as a school of crime for life". Last week, in statements to journalists on the sidelines of a visit to the Ovibeja agricultural fair, Nuno Melo said he had lived "24 hours of a parallel reality" because of a "falsehood made news" and denied having proposed the recruitment of young delinquents. "I lived 24 hours of parallel reality, with a falsehood made news and, then, comments for 24 hours on that news, a minister confronted with what I never proposed, the president [of the Republic] confronting with what I never announced and here we go, until the moment when the clarification was finally given", said Nuno Melo. The minister stressed that he had limited himself to giving "an answer through a rhetorical question to a student", within the scope of that session at the university, about what "the Armed Forces can also do in relation to students or people in underprivileged contexts". Nuno Melo said he was "very happy" with the requests presented to the Assembly of the Republic for him to provide clarifications precisely there, before parliament, which he stressed he will do "with great pleasure". "I myself was a deputy and, therefore, I will be there, with great pleasure, to give explanations about all this, Not now, not now. The explanations I will give will be to the deputies in the mother house of democracy", he said, guaranteeing that he will answer all the questions that the deputies ask him "without exception". The Minister of National Defense also defended that, "much more than justifying or commenting on" what "he never said", what "should really be evaluated is how what happened 48 hours ago can happen in a consolidated democracy". Read Also: Approved hearing of Nuno Melo on compulsory military service (Portuguese version)