Póvoa de Varzim Club Accuses Neo-Nazi Event Organisers of Ignoring Its Order to Leave, After the Council Revoked the Noise Licence

The club whose hall in central Póvoa de Varzim hosted a two-day neo-Nazi music event this weekend says it ordered the organisers to leave on Saturday morning and that they refused. In a statement on Sunday, reported by Notícias ao Minuto, the Associação Cultural e Recreativa da Matriz (Matriz Cultural and Recreational Association) said its board "only learned of the alleged nature and purpose of the initiative early on the evening of 30 October, when the event was already under way".

What the club says

After a night of meetings with its lawyers, on Saturday morning it "formally told the person who had hired the space" that it did not want the event to continue and gave "express instructions" to leave. "Those instructions were not followed," it said. Wishing to avoid "any confrontation or use of force", it chose "not to aggravate the situation".

On Saturday the board had already said, in a statement also reported by Notícias ao Minuto, that a private individual had booked the hall for "a birthday party, with musical entertainment and live bands", and that the council's noise licence had been requested on that basis. The club, which says it has more than 500 members, is now preparing legal action; it says it seeks "the truth", not compensation.

The licence, the police and a court filing

Notícias ao Minuto reports that the town council revoked the event's licença especial de ruído (special noise licence), which had barred concerts after midnight, and that the second day went ahead anyway, as the Jornal de Notícias (JN) first reported. Several neighbours called the PSP (Polícia de Segurança Pública, the urban police), but there was no police intervention, according to the same reports.

A police source in Porto told the JN that the authorised hours had been kept and that "the police could have stopped the event if asked for an opinion, but we only found out afterwards, and the event was taking place on private, legal property". The JN also reported that the organisers had filed for an injunction at the Tribunal Administrativo e Fiscal do Porto (Porto Administrative and Tax Court) while the club was trying to stop the event; the case was not treated as urgent.

The council has published no statement on its own news page, and neither the PSP nor the Ministério Público (public prosecutor) has said publicly whether any inquiry is open. Press reports on Saturday put Friday evening's attendance at more than 200 people, and attributed the event to the Portuguese branch of the international Blood & Honour network.

What the law says

Under the Regulamento Geral do Ruído (General Noise Regulation, Decree-Law 9/2007), noisy temporary activities near homes are not allowed on weekends, public holidays or weekday nights from 8pm to 8am (article 14). A council may allow them "in exceptional and duly justified cases" through a special noise licence that sets the conditions (article 15, as reworded by Decree-Law 278/2007). Article 18 lets the police suspend an activity that breaks those rules, on their own initiative or at a resident's request.

Article 46(4) of the Constitution does not permit racist organisations or those that adopt fascist ideology. Whether any law was broken in Póvoa de Varzim is for the authorities and the courts to decide.

For residents, the practical point is that unlicensed late-night noise near your home can be reported to the PSP or GNR at the time. Separately, in October all nine accused in the Armilar Lusitano case were sent to trial for terrorism; nothing reported links that case to the Póvoa de Varzim event.