“Okupar Abril” movement expelled by the police from a vacant building in Lisbon: they had a canteen and worked with children and the elderly

They call themselves “Okupar Abril” and it was in April, on the 25th, that the movement decided to set up shop in a vacant building, already partially boarded up, in “protest against real estate speculation”.

The building, owned by IPSS (Private Social Solidarity Institution) Fundação D. Pedro VI, is located on Rua Bartolomeu da Costa, in the parish of Santa Engrácia, in Lisbon.

This Thursday morning the occupants were “surprised” by the police, who expelled them “illegally”, they say. To Expresso, this movement sought to justify the occupation and the illegality of the eviction.

“This building has been abandoned for 15 years. Before it was a daycare center, then a nursing home and, finally, a kind of center for children with Down syndrome. We wanted to continue the social work that the foundation [D. Pedro IV] left it here”, they guarantee.

And they also guarantee that the building, despite having been closed more than a decade ago, was “structurally quite well”, having only had to do “cleaning of rubble, removing some dead animals and other simple painting rehabilitation”.

As soon as they did, they named the new space “Centro Social Cultural de Santa Engrácia” and began work.

“In the first few days, residents’ assemblies were held, where the social and community work to be developed was planned. Hundreds of neighbors got involved. Today, mainly from donations and volunteer work, we have canteens here to serve meals, a functional kitchen and a cafeteria, there are activities with children and elderly people, there are conversations and cultural discussions”, they explain.

Regarding the police action this Thursday, they guarantee that it was “inappropriate”. “The police immediately started closing the doors. They had no eviction warrant and yet they refused to speak to our lawyers. And they threatened us: ‘Do you want to come down or not? If they don’t go down well, they go down badly!’”, they denounce.

In the hours following the eviction, a few dozen people gathered at number 2 on Rua Bartolomeu da Costa, in protest.

“How will it be resolved? We do not know. What experience tells us is that resolution depends from situation to situation. But there has to be a precautionary measure — and there was none. We have prepared a letter to send today [quinta-feira] to the D. Pedro IV Foundation, but we ended up not even being able to send it. It was a letter letting people know that we were here and wanted to talk”, assumes the “Okupar Abril” movement.

Expresso contacted the D. Pedro IV Foundation but has not yet received a reaction to the occupation and eviction in Santa Engrácia.

“WILD” OCCUPATION

The occupied building is owned by the D. Pedro IV Foundation and has belonged to the institution “since the end of the 19th century”, having been “donated by a Portuguese emigrant in America”. The explanation is given to Expresso by the president of the foundation, Vasco Canto Moniz. Since then, “it has had countless uses, always in working with children”.

In mid-2010, it stopped being used “due to lack of conditions” and Vasco Canto Moniz explains that it would be used for housing.

“We investigated the City Council’s urban planning services [Municipal de Lisboa]we presented a ‘common’, non-social housing project, and councilor Manuel Salgado issued a favorable order in 2013. We presented the architectural project, it was ordered to be changed, we disagreed, we had serious difficulties, but finally in October [de 2023] we received final approval”, he explains.

The project that will move forward will have 17 apartments and will allow the D. Pedro IV Foundation, through future sales, to “boost its social action projects”, assures Vasco Canto Moniz.

Regarding this recent occupation, the president of the foundation considers it “savage” and guarantees that the police acted in a “peaceful” manner.

“Our habits are to comply with the laws. Therefore, we communicated the savage occupation to the PSP. What is done there has nothing to do with our activity. In fact, it was the neighbors, who were deeply upset, who reported the occupation to us. Today, peacefully, the police removed 50 individuals from this property that is not theirs”, he concludes.