1 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –
This Saturday thousands of people have taken to the streets of the Portuguese cities of Lisbon, Porto, Viseu, Aveiro, Coimbra and Braga supporting a protest for “Decent housing for all people”.
“We want a house to live in”, “A house is a right” or “So many people without a house. So many houses without people” are some of the slogans that could be read on the banners. The Lisbon demonstration took place in a festive atmosphere, with music and dances to claim the “right to the city”.
Representatives of neighborhood associations and others that have called for an end to evictions and relocations have been present at the protest, reported the Portuguese newspaper ‘Público’.
The leader of the Left Bloc, Catarina Martins, has participated in the Lisbon meeting. “We have some of the lowest salaries in Europe and the most expensive houses in the world,” he reproached, while calling for an end to tax benefits for real estate funds that “earn more with empty houses than what they earn with the people inside.
For the leader of the Communist Party of Portugal, Paulo Raimundo, “it is a just cause.” Raimundo has criticized that the measures of the Government of the Socialist Party “do not attack banks or real estate funds” and therefore “does not respond to people’s problems.”
