PORTO, Portugal: In the dark hours before dawn on Thursday, a small city of tents in the heart of Porto came to an abrupt and bitter end.
Housing rights activists say police used violent and excessive force at around 3 a.m. to clear Praça D. João I, where protesters had been camping since Saturday. The Housing Movement, which organised the protest, said 37 people were injured, two of them with fractures. Earlier reports put the figure at at least 35, reported by Euro News.
The movement called the force “extreme, disproportionate and unjustified,” insisting the camp had been peaceful from the start. Spokesperson Pedro Manuel said the first attempt at removal came around 2 a.m., when cleaning vehicles tried to disperse the crowd. Demonstrators linked arms in a human chain to protect their tents, and the vehicles left. He claimed officers returned an hour later, after the media had gone, and began “harassing protesters with brutality.”
Police offered a briefer account. A source at the Porto Metropolitan Command of the Public Security Police told Euronews that “a more forceful intervention was necessary,” but said it was too early to give details or the number of injured. Officers confirmed the square had been fully cleared.
The confrontation had been foreshadowed. On Wednesday, Mayor Pedro Duarte declared the square “is not a campsite” and promised to be “absolutely ruthless” with anyone pitching tents there. Movement representative Leonor Figueiredo said the night’s events proved he meant it: “We have understood the message.”
Duarte said the right to demonstrate is not in question, but it “cannot clash with the freedom of everyone else in the city.” He noted that Portuguese law generally limits demonstrations to 12:30 a.m. Manuel disputed this, saying the protest was authorised until the 20th.
The demonstrators had stayed on after city workers removed their first tents, voting at a public assembly on Wednesday to keep fighting over the housing crisis.
Now the square is empty. The dispute over rent, shelter, and who may claim a patch of public ground is not.
