A thousand people gather in D. João I Square in Porto after the police charge

Ca thousand people were, by 5 p.m., in Praça D. João I, in Porto, a space where at this time a band was heard, silkscreen printing was printed and there were children on the floor drawing houses.

In a scenario quite different from what happened 13 hours before, when a new police load drove the Housing Camp away from its demonstration space, the atmosphere was quite relaxed waiting for the concentration announced by the movement at 5 p.m.

The presence of either PSP agents or the Municipal Police is not visible.

The union of three printing studios of Porto occupies a lateral space of the square, printing the blue, pink and blue images of houses with the phrase Campada Porto 2026 to offer to those who go to the square, counted one of the employees.

“All in all we will print 500 screen printings,” he said, while another one was ready to put them on the floor and, whoever wanted, to collect at no cost.

With the sides of the square full of people sitting and standing, the posters removed at dawn before the police raid returned to their place, being visible other fights between the messages drawn on the card, reading, one of them “Residues of the Barroso Covas Mine can pollute the Douro river”.

Almost across the square, but on the same wall, on a canvas the message was another, adapted and inspired by the song “Come another five”, by Zeca Afonso: “Don’t make me come to the street to live, which is already time to have houses to inhabit.”.

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

In statements to journalists at the headquarters of the PSP in Lisbon, Sérgio Soares argued that the use of force only happened after the protesters threw paints and petards at the police.

Among the 13 arrested in police intervention in demonstrations for the right to housing, the PSP spokesman explained that six were arrested in Lisbon and seven in Porto.

On the other hand, of the injured cops, all in Porto, 10 were police officers and three were in a civilian unit.

A fourth police officer from this plainclothes unit in Porto withdrew the firearm when the protesters approached, admitted Sérgio Soares.

The protesters of the Porto Camp denounced the action “unproportional, unconstitutional and without legal basis” against a peaceful protest of the PSP.