Every time a group of policemen moved in a line, close to the occupied and well-guarded buildings, the song “The Imperial March”, from the film “Guerra das Estrelas”, heard from the drums and mouths of about 100 protesters . They were on the street shouting for Seara, a day center for the most needy and that at this time also received 13 people who spent the night there. Around 5:30 am on Monday, a dozen private security guards, hired by the new owners of the properties, entered the premises and began to withdraw the people and the goods that were there.
“Some came in uniform, others came without a uniform, some were armed,” a volunteer from the association tells Expresso. “There was one of them who showed the gun. There was physical intimidation. They pushed a person up the stairs. Despite that, there were three people who stayed inside. ” In other words, there were ten people who slept there. The police arrived after 8 am, called by the volunteers.
On the street, you could hear “we want housing, no waste bin”, “the city is not sold and people do not surrender”, “Seara stays!”, In a gathering that did not respect the recommended social distance in times of pandemic. A good number of the protesters were young. Despite the constant provocation to the agents, the screams that asked for dignity and freedom for those who were being expelled, the accusations that the agents were defending “the capital”, the spirits were calm. We were in the wake of the most tense moment of the day, which had occurred towards the end of the afternoon, when protesters blocked access to the PSP buildings and there was a police charge, with bastards and pepper gas. According to the Lusa agency, some were injured, including three police officers.
Before this confrontation, between 20 and 30 volunteers and supporters of the association entered the facilities and stayed there for several hours. When they appeared at the windows they were greeted with words of support and applause. His fists were clenching, as if confirming that he was fighting for something. “It’s an illegal eviction,” was heard among the crowd.
“There was no solution for these people,” laments the same member of the association, also saying that members of private security had access to the buildings, walking in a “shuttle”, unlike those who had just been evicted. The Seara volunteer says that the properties are associated with gold visas and that they are sold in installments to citizens of Hong Kong and Russia, for example. The same member of the day care center explains that in the three properties, bought a year and a half ago, two restaurants operated and there was a part of the house and another where there was a nursery.
A PSP source told Lusa that the three people concerned, inside the buildings, could stay in that support center tonight, ensuring that access to the building would be “forbidden to others”. This version would not be as solid as the bricks that would be used to wall the buildings.
“They are going out,” whispers a protester on the front line, on the phone with someone inside. “You have to realize that they are going to be arrested and that there must be lawsuits,” he reminds someone inside. Later, as a poorly kept secret, those at the window filled their lungs and said, “Let’s go out peacefully! Our proposals were not accepted by the police ”. Screams, drumming and music returned: “Our struggle is all day long, our houses are not merchandise!”.
And there went out, in a dropper, in a corridor made by the intervention police, the approximately 25 supporters of that cause who entered those facilities, recently transformed into a day center for people in a precarious situation to deal with some matters, take a shower, carry the phone and, taking the lunch box, eat. At each exit, applause and shouts of victory. They were all identified and no one was arrested.
The police apparatus, with some of the agents well armed and with their faces covered, provoked the ire of some protesters. “Sons of bitches! Whose service are they at? ”, It was heard over and over again. The rotten peace almost fell to the wrong side when a young woman noticed that an agent had not been identified and started shouting at him, while gently wiping the little penguin from the nose with a red handkerchief. She stepped forward, simulated a touch on the agent’s visor and was warned with a finger in the air. There were some shoves. It was the fuse to light those around her. That tense moment lasted for a few minutes and would eventually settle down like a candle that extinguishes old age.
“The police neither expel the three people inside, nor the security guards”, the member of the association intrigues in conversation with Expresso. “The ideal was to find a solution for the people who are still inside and for the people who were expelled. We will have to resolve in the more personal field, with mutual help between the volunteers, but it is incredible that this is the way to resolve these situations. It would have been very easy to restore order and law if the security guards who were illegally in the building had been expelled and had allowed the people who were staying overnight to go back inside. We wait for the judicial process to proceed. That was not the option they took, they sided with the security guards. “
Around midnight it became known that, after all, the three people who were allowed to stay in that space preferred to leave because they would have to stay under the surveillance of eight security guards. This is what told the agency Lusa Bernardo Valares, one of the center’s volunteers. “They were intimidated,” explained Valares, who accused “all institutions” of having failed the displaced.
Next, the building was walled (closed) with bricks, an information that PSP has not yet confirmed to Lusa, guaranteeing that there will be a statement in the next few hours.
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