AML welcomes the performance of PSP and rejects repudiating disproportionate intervention

A Lisbon Municipal Assembly (AML) today approved a PSD greeting vote to the police's action in the Housing Camp and rejected the rejection proposed by the PAN to political orientations that led to the disproportionate response of police forces.

The PSD greeting vote to “recognize the excellent service provided” by the Public Security Police (PSP) and the Municipal Police was approved with the votes against PCP, PAN BE PEV E FREE, the abstention of PS and IL and in favor of PSD, CDS-PP and Arrivo (in most points).

Most of the PAN’s vote to reject “government’s political responsibility in PSP interventions in camp” were reproved with the votes against PSD, IL, CDS-PP and Enough.

By the PSD, Liliana Fidalgo argued that “when disorder is imposed by intimidation or by the non-compliance of legitimate determinations, freedom is not extended, public order that allows everyone to exercise their freedom”.

The Social Democrat also considered that the undercover police in Porto filmed to wield a firearm “is an example of restraint and, above all, of the best training that” one can “demand from a PSP agent”, because “even without a uniform, it was signaled” and “even with a firearm, he did not point it to anyone”.

“ This agent symbolizes the best we have in the PSP and incorporates everything that we want here today ", vincou.

By the PAN, António Morgado Valente said that “it is precisely because security forces play such an important role that their actions should always be subject to the principles of legality, proportionality, impartiality and respect for fundamental rights”, considering that reports of disproportionate use of force, assaults denounced by journalists, difficulties reported in providing medical care and the display of a firearm by an agent in the plainlands, “suscited legitimate concerns”.

The PAN stressed that this vote did not intend to “discriminate the agents on the ground indiscriminately”, but rather “to affirm that in mature democracy it is legitimate and necessary to scrutinize not only operational action, but also the guidelines and priorities that frame these interventions”.

By the PS, Hugo Gaspar considered that “the answer has to be political, not police” and challenged the government to retreat in the review of the rent law and the municipal PSD group to withdraw the vote of greeting.

“Do this favor to the PSP, the government has already put it in the first line of a social conflict, do not now put it in the first line of a political conflict. To safeguard the institution is not to greet it at a time when its action raised doubts, this has another name: political chicana ", accused the socialist.

João Monteiro, do Livre, argued that the PAN document “represents a situation closer to reality” and criticized “the political entities that gave orders to move forward with the demobilization of protesters and the withdrawal of tents”, considering that the PSD vote “is intended to make political use of security forces, deliberately ignoring what is at stake”, which is the housing crisis.

By the CFP, Pedro Frias said that the PSD vote represents “a true exercise of hypocrisy”, because “the same who have devalued for years the just demands of security forces professionals are those who now appear hastily to greet them when their performance meets their intentions to limit the rights and freedoms of those who protest”.

Raquel Coelho, from the ENP, argued that the PSD initiative “has nothing to do with a greeting to the work” of the police, but rather with the “validation of the police violence that several protesters have suffered”, recalling that there are already several “crime complaints against police action, including journalists”.

Joana Teixeira of BE considered the intention of the PSD is “to cover wrong political decisions and contrary to the rule of law”.

“The mayor of Lisbon says that he did not enter any of these decisions, however, the Municipal Police and Urban Hygiene were there to collect the tents, by the way, which lack of cleaning in the city, apparently, it was easy to settle with a camp in each neighborhood,” said the blogger.

By IL, Catarina Amaral pointed out that “the demonstrations brought this reality [of the housing crisis] to the center of the political debate and did well, but the debate deviated.”.

“ Today we discuss police and protesters, greetings and repudiations, when we need to discuss the answer we owe to those who are looking for a home,” she lamented.

By the CDS-PP, Martim Borges de Freitas “refused the complicit silence before the cynical and manipulative narrative that the left and the extreme left try again and again to impose in Portuguese society, that of transforming the agents of authority into the villains of our democracy”, while Margarida Bentes Penedo, from Cávez, considered that “there is no threat to the State of Democratic Law”, besides “the threats of the campers themselves, who occupy the public space, prevent the circulation of journalists, vandalize the heritage and leave the square full of waste”.