Free demands resignation of the MAI for police action in demonstrations

O Free today demanded the resignation of the Minister of Internal Administration, Luís Neves, “for political responsibility” in the police charges against protesters, who considers it “unproportional and unjustified”, and announced that it will expose the case to international organizations.

In a statement, the party is going ahead with an exhibition to the Human Rights Commissioner of the Council of Europe, Michael O’Flaherty, and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk.

For the Free, these are “severe violations of rights protected by the European Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights”.

In the same note, the Livre condemns police action in “peaceful demonstrations for the right to housing”, considering “deeply worrying” the “new intervention with recourse to violence” this morning in Lisbon and Porto.

The party recalls that the deputies Isabel Mendes Lopes, Jorge Pinto and Paulo Muacho were in Lisbon and Filipa Pinto in Porto “seeking to contribute to avoid an escalation of tension and the use of the police force”.

“It is particularly serious that these events should be repeated in a context in which thousands of people seek to draw attention to a housing crisis that continues to be unanswered by Louis Montenegro at the time,” the party said.

The Free maintains that “manifesting by a dignified dwelling is not a threat to democracy, it is exercising a fundamental right and demanding that the State fulfil its responsibilities”.

Thirteen protesters were arrested and thirteen police officers were injured in the police intervention in the camps today in Lisbon and Porto, announced the PSP spokesman, who justified the police action with increasing popular resistance.