Police dismantle protest camp in Madrid: authorities, activists

• Madrid police cleared a protest camp in Puerta del Sol after more than a month, removing 334 people and arresting two, city authorities said.
• Officials said the overnight Nov 2-3 operation was peaceful, with 220 national police, 180 municipal officers, firefighters and social services involved.
• Activists said the camp protested Spain’s housing crisis after an 87-year-old woman was evicted, and they called the police action “violent”, saying several people were hurt.

MADRID – Police have dismantled a protest tent camp in Madrid, authorities and activists said on Nov 3, more than a month after it was set up in the centre of the Spanish capital to protest the country’s housing crisis.

“The eviction of the Puerta del Sol camp took place without incident or episodes of violence,” said sources from Madrid’s city government, reporting that 334 people were removed and two arrested.

In a post on Telegram, protest organisers called it “a violent police operation” that left several people injured after being hit or as a result of tear gas.

The camp sprang up on Sept 26 following the police eviction of an 87-year-old pensioner from her lifelong Madrid home, after the real estate company that owned the apartment drastically raised the rent.

That sparked nationwide protests against runaway housing costs and a lack of tenant protections, with tens of thousands of demonstrators hitting the streets.

Protesters set up a tent camp in Madrid’s emblematic Puerta del Sol square, with the encampment turning into a sprawling warren of tents and tarpaulin hosting hundreds of people in a mini-city equipped with a canteen, a clinic and a space for meetings.

Police moved to clear the camp overnight on Nov 2-3, city authorities said.

“The operation involved 220 national police officers and 180 officers from Madrid’s municipal police, with the participation of firefighters and social services,” city sources said, welcoming “an operation that made it possible to carry out the evacuation without violent disruption to public order”.

Early on Nov 3, much of the square was closed off by police, with cleaning operations underway, according to AFP journalists on the scene. AFP