Porto protesters vote to pitch tents again after two police charges

Assembly votes to return to the square

On Wednesday, 28 October, a popular assembly of about 300 people at Praça D. João I in Porto voted to pitch tents there again. The camp has been demanding the right to housing on the square since 10 October, and this is the fourth time protesters have set up tents in Porto. Not everyone present took part in the vote, but those who did approved unanimously the permanence and resistance of the camp in the square. SAPO reports that at least 30 tents and sleeping bags were available for the night. The same assembly approved the creation of a newspaper in digital and print form, and suggested the Teatro Municipal Rivoli or the Coliseu do Porto as venues for a future meeting, with overnight camping limited to Fridays and Saturdays.

Police charges and the Sunday dispersal

A first police charge on the protesters on 15 October injured 39 people and led to no arrests. A second charge in the same square reportedly used batons, dogs and tasers. In the early hours of Sunday, 25 October, the PSP dispersed demonstrations in Lisbon and Porto with batons and dogs, after more than two hours of tension in which protesters refused orders to leave and to remove their tents, citing the constitutional right to demonstrate. Police reported 33 injured and 33 detained for disobedience across both cities, while the camp organizations referred to dozens of injured. The Inspeção-Geral da Administração Interna (IGAI) opened an inquiry, and the ombudsman asked the PSP for urgent information about the charge. Left-wing parties criticized the intervention and asked the prime minister for clarifications. The President called for dialogue on housing and never violence, saying he did not like the images he had seen while he awaits the results of the inquiries.

Pedro Duarte defends the police action

Porto mayor Pedro Duarte (PSD/CDS-PP/IL) withdrew the word implacável, used with complete ease earlier, but he still defends the police action. Asked whether politicians should weigh in if tents return and the camp stays past 00:30, he refused to comment on police operations.

“On operational police matters, I really think politicians should not get involved, it would be a very bad principle.”

After the first charge on 15 October, Duarte had said it was absolutely clear that police were forced to act as they did. On Wednesday he said the protest was a just cause and that sympathy for the people there cannot be the criterion for enforcing the law.

“Today, we can say it is a just cause, we may even have sympathy for those people who are there, but that cannot be the criterion.”

Comparing the housing camp with a Porto firefighters' camp that stayed more than 40 days in front of city hall in 2024 without any attempt to end it, Duarte said the housing protesters had only had tents for two or three nights before police acted. He stressed that the city had shown tolerance, dialogue and conversation.

Merchants and the Lisbon court case

Duarte said he had received some individual complaints from traders around the square. A petition addressed to him, which the Lusa news agency obtained, comes from restaurant and drinks businesses on and around the square. Those businesses report revenue drops of 30 to 40%, with some activity reduced to almost zero and customers cancelling bookings out of fear of visiting the area. In Lisbon, Renata Cambra, a former spokesperson of the Movimento Alternativa Socialista and now an official of the Trabalhadores Unidos party, has filed an administrative action before the Lisbon administrative court. She asks for permission to camp at the Rossio for 24 hours, until the morning of 25 November, the day of the final overall vote on the State Budget. Judge Ana de Campos agreed to examine the merits of the case. Cambra asks the court to set aside decree-law 406/74 from 1974 on assemblies and demonstrations as unconstitutional, and to fine Carlos Moedas and police superintendent-chief Luís Elias, commander of the Lisbon Metropolitan Command, 10% of the national minimum wage for each day of non-compliance. She says the Rossio camp began on 17 October and was peaceful until the PSP intervened in the early hours of 20 October.

Derelict buildings and the 2027 tax plan

Duarte announced that the city will propose in its 2027 municipal budget that the IMI property tax on derelict buildings in the historic centre rise tenfold, a proposal not yet voted. He said the measure would apply to buildings for now and could later cover vacant land, a case he called residual in the historic centre. A municipal note published on 1 October counts 6,400 buildings with signs of being derelict. The procedure covered 379 buildings in 2022 and 531 in 2023, no decision was taken in 2024, and in 2025 it stalled during the transition of the municipal executive. Protesters' demands include reversing the new lease law, ending demolitions and evictions without housing alternatives, curbing purchases of housing by real estate funds and increasing public housing.

2022379

2023531

2022

379 buildings

2023

531 buildings

Data from the article text