Port without detainees, Lisbon with 55: Why? And what “irregularities” is there?

Oprotests for housing have been taking place for more than a week, starting in Porto. In recent days, the camp spread to Lisbon, where, early on Tuesday, there were moments of tension that culminated in the arrest of 55 demonstrators. Two people, including one of the detainees, were injured.

While in Porto the exit of the protesters will have been peaceful, having the present collected their belongings and demobilized, in the capital there were 55 people arrested in the police stations of Campolide – who, in the meantime, went free with an Identity and Residence Term, according to what the Security Police (PSP) confirmed to the News to Minutes. The dozens of protesters will be heard on Wednesday at the Justice Campus.

Come in the images of police action and different versions of demonstrators and PSP, the spokesman of this authority was asked about why the decision to proceed with an operation happened for the early morning of tuesday.

Ensuring that the operations in Lisbon and Porto were “uniformized” and with the same “criteria”, despite the different results – since in Porto there were no arrests – the PSP’s manager noticed that the authorities saw in the last days that there were in both sites “the maintenance and continuation of demonstrations that already occurred in some irregularities”.

What are these irregularities?

Stressing that the authorities gave room for negotiation and dialogue, the pSP spokesperson indicated that protesters could not maintain themselves as they were, in line with Article 45 of the Constitution (which enshrines the right of assembly and demonstration).

“ This residual number of incidents [Lisbon] is also due to the fact that protesters did not follow some of the indications, despite our efforts. And we have exhausted these efforts in recent days, in order to show that this set of irregularities had to cease, in order to return the restoration of the legality of the public space in abras the squares ", pointed out.

“ The constitution is clear in the consecration of the right of assembly and demonstration, but then we have a legal act that imposes some limits on this right of assembly and demonstration”, he said.

Recalled Article 11 of Decree-Law No 406/74 of August 29 (which regulates the right of assembly and demonstration in Portugal), the PSP official stated that the irregularities in question are foreseen there. “Limit gatherings and demonstrations until 12:30. In particular, also the issue of noise, mounts and camping structures that were not licensed, as the law provides. In view of these irregularities, PSP found itself in the obligation to do this operation and in this sense, gave priority to dialogue and negotiation”, he explained.

In Porto, the demonstrators “asked for time to collect belongings”, a request to which the authorities authorized: “ In Lisbon, indication was not accepted, which forced us to have an appropriate, proportional police intervention without any type of excess”. “There was resistance, either passive or active,” he said.

“Our guide is always the law”, pointed out, realizing that it was following the irregularities mentioned above, as well as by “some public health that lived in the squares” that the withdrawal was carried out.

New concentration is already called for at 19 hours, both in Lisbon and Porto.