“At this time, it is a singular occurrence whose motivations the competent authorities are investigating. There is no record of any other type of occurrence,” stated Fernando Paulo.
It was reported that “two women, part of volunteer teams distributing food aid to homeless individuals in Porto, were insulted and assaulted with ‘pushes and punches’ by two men who, after making a Nazi salute, blamed them for the increase in immigrants in the country.”
Fernando Paulo, speaking to journalists after a meeting of the Porto’s Homeless Planning and Intervention Nucleus (NPISA) to analyze the situation and discuss ways to prevent new cases, stated that the targeted association resumed its activity “regularly and normally” on the city’s streets.
“At present, the associations are maintaining their work regularly and normally,” he confirmed, adding that the security forces “assured” NPISA that “the teams can continue to work with all comfort and security.”
Fernando Paulo, also the coordinator of NPISA Porto, said the incident that occurred on June 10, a public holiday, “brought greater unity among all institutions [within the structure] and increased solidarity to continue the work in strengthening service to the common good, for the benefit of the most needy people.”
“We want to collectively affirm the unity of Porto’s social network and NPISA Porto. We are intolerant of this type of behavior and attitudes. This only strengthens and solidifies us, leading us to say we will remain united for our city and in the fight against poverty and social exclusion,” he asserted.
NPISA Porto “brings together more than 70 organizations ensuring all proximity work both in institutions and in the city’s 60 overnight spaces.” The municipal structure daily serves two thousand hot meals.
Despite “the normality and until now being a singular situation,” the NPISA coordinator expressed “concern regarding increasingly frequent hate speech” and stressed the need to maintain “some surveillance, some attention” to “reject such situations and conduct social pedagogy.”
Fernando Paulo disclosed that NPISA, alongside the commander of the Municipal Police, is preparing a “contingency plan” to be presented next month, which includes “training and equipping the teams and organizations working in this demanding field and mission.”
He added that the training “will be provided by the police forces.”
According to data presented, Porto has 600 people living in homelessness, “with little more than 200 of them on the streets, without a roof, and the others in social responses,” in addition to people “living in social vulnerability and migrants.”
The commander of the Municipal Police, Superintendent Leitão da Silva, described the assaults on the volunteers as an “atypical and isolated event” and ensured that “one incident cannot change the delivery of an absolutely commendable service.”
“It would be a huge error in a Rule of Law for a criminal act to necessitate reprogramming everything and for these teams to be forced to alter their routes because the homeless often do not change routes… Continue doing exactly the same thing because we cannot skew a Rule of Law… Hatred, discriminatory speech, racism have no place in democracy. That is what we try to ensure every day,” he stated.
Leitão da Silva dismissed “the idea of having a police officer for each service van,” but said the teams “will be reinforced, coordinating and managing resources of the police forces, the Municipal Police and the Metropolitan Command of the PSP of Porto, whose Commissioner Ana Proença attended today’s meeting.
In addition to training institutions and volunteers, Commander Leitão da Silva mentioned that a direct line with police forces is being planned for volunteers to use.
