Thirty-one people were detained and 33 others injured across Lisbon and Porto following a series of police clearings aimed at dismantling protest encampments advocating for housing, Archyde has learned.
The coordinated operations, which unfolded late Saturday night and into the early hours of Sunday, saw law enforcement advance on demonstrators occupying public squares in Portugal’s two largest cities. According to RTP, the state broadcaster, the midnight interventions targeted the Acampada do Rossio in Lisbon’s Praça D. Pedro IV and the encampment in Porto’s Praça D. João I, where police used force to disperse demonstrators near 02:00.
The confrontations left 11 individuals initially categorized with injuries—including eight protesters and three police officers, distributed across five occurrences in Lisbon and two in Porto, with police noting that a police officer in the capital was injured by a demonstrator’s dog. Subsequent updates from Jornal de Negócios, citing hospital sources at Santa Maria and São José, revealed that 27 people sought hospital treatment in Lisbon alone—including 24 entries at Hospital de São José, where the last discharge occurred at 06:55 on Sunday, and three lightly injured individuals at Santa Maria who were discharged before morning—pushing the total number of injured protesters to 33, consisting of 27 in Lisbon and six in Porto.
Police Remove 171 Camp Structures in Lisbon and Porto
Authorities executed the clearings alongside Municipal Police units, resulting in the removal and seizure of 171 camp structures and tents—117 in Lisbon and 54 in Porto. Police officials maintained that the actions were necessary to restore legality in the occupation of public spaces and address unauthorized installations that violated urban legislation. In Porto, law enforcement reported seizing a pyrotechnic petardo, three cans of paint hurled at officers, and a canister of pepper spray from those detained. Of the 31 total arrests made for disobedience, 25 occurred in Lisbon and six in Porto.
The detained protesters are scheduled to appear before a judicial authority on Monday.
The PSP defended the operational necessity by arguing that while protests had been communicated beforehand, long-term occupation, damage to public property, and refusal to follow voluntary de-escalation instructions forced their hand. Police representatives emphasized that the right to meeting and demonstration must coexist with the rights of other citizens, while also praising the civic behavior seen during separate Saturday demonstrations in other cities that proceeded normally.
Eduardo Cabrita Warns Against Political Instrumentalization of the PSP
Eduardo Cabrita, the former Minister of Internal Administration, warned in an interview with RTP Antena 1 that the PSP risks becoming instrumentalized by political factions attempting to shift public attention away from the underlying housing problems and onto matters of public order. Cabrita recognized the common sense of Minister of Infrastructure and Housing Miguel Pinto Luz, who showed enormous concern and acknowledged the population’s pain during the protests, but observed calls to violence in statements from Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Carlos Abreu Amorim and deputies from the PSP and Chega.
Contrasting views emerged from other political quarters.
