Portugal housing protests: 13 arrested as camps cleared

Portuguese police arrested 13 people early Sunday as officers cleared housing protest camps in Lisbon and Porto, in an operation that police said injured 13 officers and activists said left more than 30 protesters hurt.

Police moved into an encampment in Lisbon's Rossio Square and a smaller camp in Porto's Dom Joao I Square at about 4:30 a.m. Clashes followed as officers took down tents. Police said six people were arrested in Lisbon and seven in Porto for refusing orders to disperse.

Police said some protesters threw bottles and paint at officers. They also said three plain-clothes officers monitoring protesters in Porto were assaulted after being spotted by a group, and that one officer displayed his firearm as a deterrent. Police said eight of the injured officers were taken to hospital and that an unspecified number of civilians were also hurt.

Activist group Acampada Lisboa said more than 30 protesters were injured, including 10 who needed hospital treatment. It called a new rally in the capital on Sunday afternoon and accused police of violence.

Police said they seized 69 tents in Lisbon and 30 in Porto. The camps had been set up late Saturday after peaceful marches through both cities against rising housing costs.

Ricardo Sa Fernandes, a lawyer representing protesters at Lisbon's housing camps, said he would file a criminal complaint against the interior minister and the national police chief for abuse of power. Amnesty International had said after police cleared protest camps the previous weekend that it was deeply concerned by what it called excessive and disproportionate police force.

Protesters want Portugal's minority centre-right government to drop plans to ease evictions and remove rent caps on new leases, warning that the measures would push up housing costs and make tenants more vulnerable. Prime Minister Luis Montenegro has acknowledged that property prices have doubled in a decade, but blames the crisis on previous left-wing governments for not building enough homes and on what he calls an overly permissive migration policy.