Camped denies contact with Pedro Duarte: “He is not talking to us”

The Porto Camp today denied the contacts classified today by the mayor of Porto, Pedro Duarte, as “very cordial”, with only the collective the initial formal invitation.

“ We, as a horizontal organized collective with our organizational structures, have no contact, apart from the formal invitation he sent us before.”I told Lusa Sérgio Bastos, a member of the press group of the Camp.

Sérgio Bastos said that “people are free, individually, to talk to anyone about what they want”, but denied any formal contact from part of the structure of the Camp.

Asked about who might be making contact with the House of Porto on the margin, Sérgio Bastos admitted that it could be “another group or any collective”.

“Not [Pedro Duarte] want to deny, but is not talking to us with our collective, will be talking to other people individually or other collectives. But not in our capacity, because our networks are controlled by our organizational structures”i told the reporters.

Asked if this type of action can cause any dissonance, Sérgio Bastos said he had no doubts that the mayor “want to provoke some dissonance, some disruption”.

“ But we remain firm, we continue to follow the mandate charged to us by the People’s Assembly, to respect above all the will of the People’s Assembly,” he said.

The movement continues to see the People’s Assembly “as an instrument of democracy and legitimacy” not to “suppose to any other democratic institution, but to strengthen the power of negotiation and the power of pressure”.

“ Therefore, if Pedro Duarte wants to talk to the movement that maintains the peaceful and symbolic occupation of the square and that keeps the popular assemblies listening to the people that he does not want to hear, to talk to this movement instead of looking for breaking points ", the member of the camp called.

The mayor of Porto today revealed to be in a very advanced phase of “very cordial contacts” with the Movement for Housing, which has been protesting in the city since October 10.

In the margins of the 3rd edition of the Entrance Managers Meeting in the Port Customs Office, the mayor, elected by the PSD/CDS-PP/IL, said that the movement has not yet suggested a date for the meeting, but have been “exchange communications” to achieve it.

The movement for housing that since October 10 has organized protests and a camp in Praça D. João I, in Porto, today reiterated the invitation to the Saturday demonstration, leaving criticism of the Government.

The Camp also confirms having “officially received the invitation of the House of Porto on Monday”, to meet with the president and does not want to “close lines of dialogue”, but reiterates “the desire to dialogue and discuss solutions in popular assembly”.

Between demonstrations and so-called camped demonstrations, with hundreds or thousands of protesters, the current protests against the housing crisis began in Porto on October 10 and expanded to Lisbon, but they have also motivated concentrations in other cities, days after the parliamentary approval of the new rental law, now under discussion in the specialty.

The initiatives, promoted by civic movements and spread across social networks, demand measures that respond to the crisis in the sector, the control of the prices of essential goods and fuels and defend taxes on the extraordinary profits of large companies in the banking sector.

On October 15, the protesting movement in Porto, with a camp, denounced a violent police charge during the early hours that caused injuries in 39 of the participants, two of whom were in a serious state, and in a police officer. In Lisbon, the authorities removed dozens of Rossio tents early in the morning of Tuesday and held 55 demonstrators, who will be present to judge on 27.