Casa para Viver Movement condemns “police violence” in Porto

O casa para Viver movement today condemned the “police violence” in Porto, which this morning caused 35 wounded, and pointed out that “bastonadas do not build houses”.

“Thirty and five wounded. This is the balance of the police burden on those who went out to Porto to demand what the Constitution guarantees everyone: the right to a house. For the House to Live, the message of the Government and the City Hall of Porto was clear: when there are no houses, there are still batons ", criticizes the movement in a statement.

For the House to Live, “what was seen in Porto was the power to protect real estate speculation, not the people who want to continue living there.”.

“ While prices and incomes continue to rise, young people, workers, students, families and the elderly are pushed out of Porto and across the country. In the face of this crisis, neither the government nor the House present a housing policy worthy of that name. But when people organize themselves peacefully to demand it, they do not lack hands to repress them ", condemns.

In a statement, Casa para Viver also reports having called a People's Housing Assembly for Sunday, at 3:00 p.m., in Largo de São Domingos, Lisbon.

“To fight for a housing policy that solves the problems of those who live and work in Portugal and in solidarity with the protesters of Porto, Casa Para Viver calls everyone and everyone to join in an open assembly, to denounce policies that only guarantee homes for real estate funds and the richest – and to organize the answer,” he says.

“The assembly is also the starting point for the great demonstrations of November 14 throughout the country,” adds Casa para Viver.

The movement for housing, which has been protesting in Porto since Saturday, with a camp that started that day, today denounced a police charge this morning that caused injuries in 37 of the participants, two of whom will have been in serious condition.

“ Early on Thursday, at 2:56 a.m., police forces intervened in the camp for housing in Praça D. João I, in Porto, in an operation to put an end to the protest ", says the movement in statement.

According to this movement, among the wounded is a disabled person and several participants in the concentration were hospitalized.

On Monday, the Municipal Police removed about 50 tents that were armed in the square, substantiating the chamber that the camp improperly occupied the public space, leading the protesters to sleep in the open, keeping the protest.

On Wednesday, in a popular assembly, people voted for maintaining the protest and going back to sleep in tents, expressing the group’s desire to “continue growing and not only in Porto”, appealing to other cities, such as what is already called for Lisbon.

The participants again installed tents during the night, which were removed by the police, after the mayor of Porto, Pedro Duarte, said on Wednesday that it would be “absolutely relentless with any attempt to place tents” in the square D. João I”.