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Lusa - Business News - Portugal: Council demolishes houses, residents complain about police - report
Loures, Portugal, April.16,2024(Lusa)- Vladimira's daughter asked for an orange and that's what she was peeling on the doorstep when she was "pushed" by the police who accompanied a demolition of houses in the Montemor neighbourhood on Tuesday, decided by the Loures City Council. "Throw the knife inside before I shoot you in the head," she was told by one of the officers who went to the neighbourhood this morning, visited by Lusa after complaints from housing associations about demolitions in progress. Lusa toured the neighbourhood - where the municipality has already demolished "more than a dozen buildings" in recent weeks - and the stories were repeated, including that of Júlia, who says that the police dented her door, even though she had closed it when ordered to go inside. Last week, during a similar operation, Felizarda says she was dragged by the arm by a policeman and Stela, whose house was demolished a few days ago, says she was hit with a truncheon because, due to the noise of the bulldozer, she didn't hear an officer's instruction to go home. The entrance to Rua Particular, in the Montemor neighbourhood, is down an uneven, bumpy road, with single-storey houses on either side, door numbers handwritten in black ink. Makeshift clotheslines dot the landscape as far as the eye can see: the neighbourhood ends on a green hill, above which is a school. When Lusa arrived on the scene, a group of neighbours were trying to comfort Rosa, anticipating that the same might happen to them. From the main path, some stairs lead up to higher ground: that's where the house demolished today was. The white door of number 82 is now on the ground, and the traces of demolition are still fresh in a pile of tiles, glass, clothes and the household equipment she had to remove quickly "without anyone's help": cooker, fridge, water heater, gas cylinder. Rosa says she built the house where she lived with her partner and three children, one of whom was chronically ill and the other still a student, in 2014. "They smashed up the whole house. There are five of us with nowhere to sleep," she said. When asked by Lusa afterwards, the deputy mayor of Loures, Sónia Paixão, said that the residents of the house demolished today were attended to by the local authority's social services at the beginning of the month, who informed them that "the construction was illegal" and explained that "they would have to look for alternative housing". The municipality undertakes "very assertive enforcement action in neighbourhoods that have been identified", but the mayor guaranteed that what was demolished today was "a new building" and "an extension to another building", dating from the end of 2023. The deputy mayor declined to comment on the police's approach. She explained that "it is practice" to request police accompaniment for this type of operation, which is accompanied on the ground by council housing and municipal police teams. According to Sónia Paixão, Rosa's household was given a two-week deadline, and she confirmed that this was the case, but can find no reason for what happened today. "They arrived, broke everything, said 'the house is coming down'. That was the justification," she said. According to the residents' accounts, the demolition of five houses carried out since last week has left nine families homeless. "The demolitions take place without warning, without any monitoring by the council's social services," said Catarina Morais, from the Vida Justa movement, stressing that the families affected by the demolitions in recent days have "no alternative housing". According to the residents, around 500 people live in the self-built neighbourhood on the site of the former Ropisa shipyard. Many of them come from Sao Tome and Príncipe, and some have lived there since 2010. "They are workers who leave their homes every morning to serve the cities (...) and then come home and see their house demolished," says Catarina Morais. Called by residents, the activist arrived at the scene in time to see "a man driving a bulldozer, accompanied by a strong police force". Several residents reported the presence of two dozen police officers, some of whom were armed, during today's demolition. A lawyer who went to the neighbourhood, called by a resident, showed Lusa the photographs she managed to take, despite being barred entry, "in flagrant violation of the law". The photos show eight officers from the Public Security Police's rapid intervention team, some of whom were armed with machine guns, and several from the Municipal Police. When she was stopped, in a "climate of intimidation", the lawyer, who requested anonymity, tried to identify the officers, who were wearing mace and helmets and had no visible names: she was told that their identification was under their waistcoats, "in flagrant violation of the law". Rute, another resident, agreed that the neighbourhood needs "a housing solution", but she criticised the approach of the local authority and the police, which she conveyed moments later to a group from the Independent Democratic Action, the governing party in Sao Tome and Príncipe. The inhabitants speak of "inhumane treatment", and all fear that they will be the next to be in Rosa's situation. "It's a quiet neighbourhood. There are no drugs or violence. We are our own police," says Júlia, 60, who has lived there since 2010. A few metres down the street, a man sweeps up the debris, which "is never cleaned up" by the demolition teams. SBR/ADB // ADB. Lusa Agency : LUSA Date : 2024-04-17 11:12:00
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