Housing Camps Take Rent Caps and a Halt to the Rental Law to Seguro at Belém, as Prosecutors Widen Their Inquiry Into the Police Clearances

Representatives of the Lisbon and Porto housing protest camps, known as the Acampadas, and of the Casa Para Viver ("A Home to Live In") platform are due at the Palácio de Belém at 10:00 today to meet President António José Seguro, a month after the protests began. The day before, the Procuradoria-Geral da República (PGR, the Prosecutor-General's Office) confirmed that prosecutors are investigating the police operations that cleared the camps.

According to Lusa, quoted in Observador's live coverage, the delegation has nine people from the Porto camp, nine from the Lisbon camp and seven from Casa Para Viver. The protests started in Porto on 10 October and spread to Lisbon's Rossio square.

What they will ask Seguro for

The camps want the new rental law reversed, a brake on home purchases by real estate funds and rent caps that are "truly affordable". RTP reports that the Lisbon camp's letter, seen by Lusa, asks the President for a written reply on four points:

• The rental law. The President sees it twice: once as Parliament's authorisation law and again as the Government's decree-law. The letter asks Seguro to say publicly what criteria he will use, to hear tenants first, and not to sign rules that make evictions easier when there is no alternative home.
• Rent caps. It asks him to send Parliament a message on Article 65(3) of the Constitution, which tells the State to work towards rents that match family income. The camp says that requires caps set by law.
• Public property. It asks him to press the Government to publish its inventory of State buildings suitable for housing, including the list of 477 properties and what is being sold, and to argue that they should become public or cooperative homes.
• Immigrants. It asks for protection for everyone who takes part, saying some immigrants fear that attending an assembly or a peaceful demonstration could count against their residence application.

The letter also asks Seguro to urge the Prime Minister to meet the camps before the Government approves the rental decree-law. The Lisbon camp has called a public assembly on the Rossio at 19:00 today.

Prosecutors widen their inquiry

Asked by RTP, the PGR said there are inquiries in Lisbon and in Porto into the police operations of 15 October in Porto, 20 October in Lisbon, and 25 October and 1 November in both cities. The Ministério Público (MP, the public prosecution service) had already opened an inquiry into the PSP's conduct in Porto on 15 October; the later Porto operations are now part of that same case. This is a criminal investigation, separate from the administrative inquiry the police inspectorate, IGAI, opened after 25 October.

A defence source told Lusa that the cases of about 85 protesters held for disobedience in Lisbon have also gone to inquiry. That means they are not tried yet; prosecutors are waiting for the Constitutional Court to rule on the 1974 rule that ends gatherings at 00:30.

What it means for you

Seguro does not write the rental law, but it must pass his desk twice before it takes effect. That makes today's meeting the camps' clearest chance to influence it before it is final. The camp says Seguro's office, the Casa Civil, wrote on 5 November that everyone should be able to demonstrate "without fear or constraint". It wants him to say publicly that this includes people who are not Portuguese citizens. After the Rossio camp folded its tents on 10 November, the next deadline is the final 2027 budget vote on 24 November.