Police Clear Housing Camps in Lisbon and Porto; 13 Arrested

At about 4:30 am Sunday, riot police with dogs entered housing protest camps in Lisbon and Porto, arrested 13 people and left dozens injured in a confrontation over Portugal’s housing crisis. Officers moved into Rossio Square in Lisbon and Dom Joao I Square in Porto to remove tents. Protesters shouted, “Smells like a dictatorship.”

Camps cleared, arrests made

Police said six people were arrested in Lisbon and seven in Porto for refusing orders to disperse. Officers seized 69 tents in Lisbon and 30 in Porto. The camps went up late Saturday, after peaceful marches against rising housing costs in both cities.

Police said some demonstrators threw bottles, fireworks and paint as officers tried to clear the sites. Thirteen officers suffered injuries; eight went to hospital. In Porto, police said a group spotted three plain-clothes officers monitoring the protest and assaulted them. One officer displayed his firearm as a deterrent.

Police didn't specify how many civilians suffered injuries. Organisers in Porto said 38 people were hurt, including three seriously, while organisers in Lisbon reported more than 30 injured. Those figures came from the organisers, not the police.

Police described the operation as carried out “with rigour, balance and respect for citizens’ rights”. The camps were cleared. That official wording now sits alongside injury reports and photographs circulated by Acampada Lisboa, which blamed protesters’ bruises and bleeding on “police violence”.

Force defended as public order

Interior Minister Luis Neves defended the police response, saying the encampments must end and officers would use force when necessary to restore public order. “I feel deep sadness about what happened again last night. Nobody takes any pleasure in seeing this outcome,” he said Sunday.

Ricardo Sa Fernandes, a lawyer representing protesters at Lisbon’s housing camps, said he would file a criminal complaint against Neves and the national police chief for abuse of power. “This is a dark night in the history of Portuguese democracy. This is absolutely intolerable and has crossed all limits,” he told reporters outside a Lisbon police station where some detainees had been taken.

This operation wasn't the first clearance or arrest. Police have repeatedly dismantled encampments in Lisbon and Porto in recent weeks. After police cleared camps in both cities the previous weekend, Amnesty International said it was “deeply concerned by the excessive and disproportionate use of force by police”.

Protesters return to the streets

Acampada Lisboa called a new rally in the capital for 5:00 pm Sunday to protest the police operation. “We will not be silenced,” the group said in a social-media statement posted alongside photographs of protesters with bruises or bleeding from injuries it blamed on police violence. Some demonstrators carried red carnations, a symbol of Portugal’s 1974 revolution, which ended the dictatorship.

Protesters want the minority centre-right government to abandon plans to ease evictions and remove rent caps on new leases. They warn those measures would raise housing costs and leave tenants more vulnerable. Prime Minister Luis Montenegro has acknowledged that property prices have doubled in a decade. He blamed previous left-wing governments for failing to build enough homes and pursuing what he called an overly permissive migration policy.

Portuguese protesters have drawn inspiration from a similar movement in neighbouring Spain, where tents have stood in central Madrid and other cities for weeks. In Lisbon and Porto, though, police have repeatedly removed the tents. The government says the encampments must end; protesters say its housing plans shouldn't leave tenants more exposed to eviction and rising costs.