Portuguese police have arrested 13 people after clashes erupted during a protest against rising housing costs in Lisbon and Porto, leaving several demonstrators and officers injured.
Riot police, accompanied by dogs, moved into protest camps in the two cities early Sunday, using batons to disperse demonstrators who had occupied public squares over the country’s worsening housing crisis.
The operation began around 4:30 am at Rossio Square in Lisbon and Dom Joao I Square in Porto, where officers attempted to dismantle the tents erected by protesters.
During the confrontation, demonstrators shouted “smells like a dictatorship,” while the police alleged that some protesters threw bottles and paint at officers attempting to remove the structures.
In a statement, the police confirmed that six people were arrested in Lisbon and seven in Porto for allegedly refusing to comply with orders to leave the areas.
Thirteen officers sustained injuries, with eight requiring hospital treatment.
Police also reported that three plain-clothes officers monitoring the demonstration in Porto were attacked after protesters identified them.
One of the officers reportedly drew his firearm to deter further aggression.
However, the activist group Acampada Lisboa said more than 30 protesters were injured during the operation, with 10 requiring hospital treatment. It announced plans for another demonstration in Lisbon on Sunday afternoon to condemn the police action.
“We will not be silenced,” the group declared in a social media statement accompanied by photographs showing protesters with bruises and bleeding injuries, which it attributed to “police violence.”
The demonstrations also featured participants carrying red carnations, a symbol associated with Portugal’s 1974 revolution that brought an end to nearly five decades of dictatorship.
Police said they confiscated 69 tents in Lisbon and another 30 in Porto during the operation. They also maintained that the exercise was conducted “with rigour, balance and respect for citizens’ rights”.
The protest camps were established late Saturday following peaceful marches in both cities over increasing rents, housing shortages and low wages.
Authorities have repeatedly dismantled similar encampments that have emerged in Lisbon and Porto in recent weeks.
Last weekend’s police operation against protesters had attracted criticism from Amnesty International, which expressed concern over what it described as the excessive and disproportionate use of force.
Meanwhile, lawyer Ricardo Sa Fernandes, who represents some of the protesters at the Lisbon housing camps, said he would institute a criminal complaint against the interior minister and the national police chief over alleged abuse of power.
“This is a dark night in the history of Portuguese democracy. This is absolutely intolerable and has crossed all limits,” he told journalists outside a Lisbon police station where some of the arrested demonstrators were being held.
The protesters are demanding that the minority centre-right government withdraw proposed changes that would make evictions easier and remove rent controls on new tenancy agreements.
They warned that the proposed measures could further increase housing costs and expose tenants to greater insecurity.
Prime Minister Luis Montenegro has acknowledged that property prices in Portugal have doubled over the past decade.
However, he blamed previous left-wing administrations for failing to construct sufficient housing and pursuing what he described as an overly permissive migration policy.
The Portuguese movement has drawn inspiration from similar protests in neighbouring Spain, where demonstrators have maintained tent encampments in central Madrid and other cities for several weeks.
