Housing: Health Workers Union condemns police charges

O The Health, Solidarity and Social Security Workers Union (STSSS) today condemned the police charges that occurred in the demonstrations for housing, last night, in Porto and Lisbon, considering them “completely disproportionate”.

“The Union of Health Workers, Solidarity and Social Security strongly condemns the completely disproportionate police charges on peaceful demonstrators who exercise the constitutional right to demonstration and meeting in the public space”, reads the statement published on their social networks.

The police charges occurred from Praça D. João I, in Porto, and in Praça D. Pedro IV, in Lisbon, where two camped.

In the press release, STSS also considers that “the orders of this type of repression by force are not consistent with the democratic state” that is being lived in Portugal.

In the statement signed by the coordinator, Joaquim Espírito Santo, the union calls on “all civil society organizations, the President of the Republic and all political leaders who take a clear and unequivocal position in favor of the right of demonstration and assembly, repudiate the repressive violence used and focus on seeking solutions to the serious crisis of housing and cost of living that affects workers in Portugal.”.

The PSP dispersed today at dawn, batonada and with the use of dogs, demonstrations for the right to housing in Lisbon and Porto, after more than two hours of tension and orders for people to leave and tents to be removed.

The demonstrators did not follow orders, invoking the constitutional right to the demonstration.

According to the PSP, there were 11 wounded, five in Lisbon and six in Porto, and 31 arrested for disobedience (25 in Lisbon and six in Porto). In a statement, the Lisbon Camp mentions dozens of wounded, 37 of them in Porto.

The protesters demand the reversal of the new rental law, the end of demolitions and evictions without an alternative housing, a stop to the purchase of housing by real estate funds, the increase in public housing, the recovery of vacant buildings for housing purposes and ceilings “truely accessible” to income.