Porto's mayor invites protesters to 3 November talks on temporary tent camps. Socialists call interior minister to parliament
Porto's mayor, Pedro Duarte, has invited the organisers of the Acampada do Porto, a tent protest for the right to housing, to a meeting at the city hall (Paços do Concelho) on Tuesday 3 November at 6pm. He wants to discuss how to balance the right to protest with the city's need to use its squares, including in the run-up to Christmas, and whether temporary tent camps could be allowed. The mayor is also offering to hold a large public debate on housing at the Rivoli theatre or another city venue. The protesters had long been demanding a meeting with him; it is not yet known whether they will attend (Notícias ao Minuto).
Overnight, police broke up the protest camp in Porto. According to the INEM ambulance service, medics treated 25 people at the protests, 16 in Porto and 9 in Lisbon; nine were taken to hospital (Notícias ao Minuto). In the evening, 13 hours after the camp was cleared, around a thousand people gathered again in Praça D. João I in Porto, with music and placards, while children drew houses on the ground; there were no police to be seen in the square (Notícias ao Minuto). In Lisbon, hundreds of people gathered in Rossio, where an open-mic people's assembly began at 5.30pm (Notícias ao Minuto).
The interior minister, Luís Neves, defended the police: in his words, only "a small minority" of the protesters are breaking the law, and the PSP police decide for themselves whether to clear a camp, without instructions from politicians. The minister repeated that he is ready to step down if the prime minister, Luís Montenegro, wants him to (Observador).
The Socialists (PS) want the minister to appear before parliament urgently (Observador), and the Communists (PCP) want an urgent debate on the police's conduct (Jornal Económico). Amnesty International said the police had once again used excessive force and promised to pass on what its observers had gathered to the minister without delay (Notícias ao Minuto).
