Lisbon camp contests “illegality” of the protest

A Lisbon camp contests the appreciation of “illegality” made by security forces in relation to the protest against living conditions and the housing crisis, which has gathered hundreds of people in the capital since Saturday.

“ The most important thing is to say that the Camp is not illegal, because the Constitution guarantees the right to demonstration and meeting, in Article 45 and, therefore, all people have the right to join, to manifest themselves in the public space and that is what is happening here,” said Teresa Mamede, one of the spokespersons of the Lisbon Camp, in statements to Lusa before the third popular assembly opened in Praça D. Pedro IV, in Rossio.

Fearing an intervention by the security forces on the site where a hundred tents are set up – especially because the police today made statements saying that they will “exhaust the way of dialogue to the full” with protest promoters in Lisbon and Porto, but warned that less day, they will have to act on the situation –, Teresa Mamede points out that “there are no cutting roads, this is a square open to the public, there is no interference with traffic”.

For this reason, he argues, “there is no way to restrict or cut the right to manifestation in public space”.

The Camp of Porto – which began on the 10th – was the subject of a police intervention that caused nearly 40 injured in the early hours of Thursday, after that day they manifested about 3,000 people in Praça D. João I.

The Constitution, approved in 1975, “is stronger” than the previous decree, Decree-Law No 406/74, which regulates the exercise of the right of assembly and demonstration in public places, approved in 1974, which is being invoked by the police to justify a possible intervention, compares Teresa Mamede.

“If the police dismantle this camp with violence, I think this is a very strong message from the State, the Government, about the silencing of dissension and this is unacceptable in a democracy,” he says, recalling what happened in Spain, where the executive did not intervene on the camp that persists for days in the center of the capital, Madrid, having the issue reached the Constitutional Court, which declared itself in favor of the right to demonstration and banned the dismantling of the camp.

“The Government wants to dismantle the camp because it does not want to comment on the background of the question (...), it does not want to answer what people are asking”, accuses, referring to the new law of the lease, approved in general in the Assembly of the Republic (with the vote in favour of PSD, IL and CDS-PP and the abstention of the Arrival), which gives “facilitities to landlords and speculators”.

The proposed government law to amend the urban lease scheme introduces more flexible contracts and faster evictions.

With the proposed reform, which completes the package of measures to combat the housing crisis launched a year ago by the government, the eviction can be initiated after two months of overdue rents (instead of the three current ones).

In addition, the Government dropped the 2% increase brake on a new contract (in relation to the previous contract), except for persons over 65 or disabled with a disability equal to or greater than 60% and annual income less than EUR 64,400, and landlords may now require three (instead of two) advance and no value limit.

Asked if there is a channel of dialogue with the Lisbon City Council, Teresa Mamede confirmed that this option, debated at the open assembly on Sunday, “has not yet been discussed” and said that there were no contacts between the municipality and the protesters.

Also the trade union centers have not yet responded to the call for accession to the general strike called in Spain for November 11 and those camped in Lisbon and Porto have already followed.

“ We have to wait to see what happens,” he said.

The Lisbon Camp, informal collective, horizontal and diverse, with the motto “Can’t you do it anymore? Then set up your tent! " today he gathered hundreds of people, starting at 7pm, in an open assembly.

“Anyone can join this assembly and there is an open space where anyone can make a proposal, a political proposal, an organizational proposal, and these proposals are voted at the end of the assembly and then try to implement themselves through working groups,” Teresa Mamede explained.

The basis of the statue of D. Pedro IV and of four female figures that symbolize the alleged virtues of the monarch – prudence, justice, fortitude and moderation – no longer has free space for posters, so that the claims have already gone beyond the sidewalk itself.

“I don’t have a home, they’re going to take my tent away?” she asks.

The popular assembly starts with music of struggle and intervention and the time between proposals and votes is occupied by slogans guided by voices that already accuse the cooling of the night and the tired of days.

The following are suggestions for organizational improvement, such as the movement between tents and internal communication, calls for accountability for proposals and the attraction of other people to protest, as well as reflections on collective security.

A permanent update sets the needs – at this stage, sleeping bags, blankets, coats, “cute sitting scenes”, powerbanks and even bouncy castles (“why not dream?”) – and there is a feeder who receives “donatives for the revolution”.

A poster lists the demands of the movement: reversal of the new rental law; end of demolitions and evictions without housing alternative; brake on housing purchase by real estate funds; increase of public housing; recovery of vacant buildings for housing purposes; apply ceilings “truely accessible” to income.