With even members within his own PSD party deeply unsettled by the scenes of police violence early this morning, PS leader José Luís Carneiro has given a press conference in Porto, stressing the response to civil unrest over the housing crisis and increasing cost of living is not through police action.
“Those who take to the streets to protest deserve respect,” he said. “The response to this crisis is political, not through police.”
Using the occasion to yet again stress the necessity to ditch rental reform proposals, heavily weighted on the side of landlords – ostensibly designed to attract new properties onto the rental market – the PS leader stressed, as have so many others, that it is time for the prime minister to “break his silence”: the country needs “urgent medium and long-term solutions”.
It was an emotive press conference, in which the PS leader accused the minority AD government, headed by Montenegro, of “throwing police against citizens” – a sure-fire sign of oppression in a country that prides itself on emerging from oppression (most recently, the 20th century decades of dictatorship under Salazar) never to return.
“The democratic rule of law applies to everyone, citizens and authorities alike; any restriction on the right to demonstrate must comply with the principles of necessity, appropriateness and proportionality. It is justified only when other rights of significance are at stake and it is imperative to preserve them. The use of force must always be a last resort”, said the PS leader this morning, adding that his party respects that police were simply carrying out political directions, but the time is well overdue now for the prime minister to give “a full explanation over what happened last night.” Indeed, his continued silence is “incomprehensible”.
Source material: Observador/ LUSA
Natasha Donn
Journalist for the Portugal Resident.