Protesters trap 4000 in Lisbon

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33779, 27 February 1975, Page 17

Protesters trap 4000 in Lisbon

(N.Z.P. A.-Reuter—Copyright)

LISBON, February 26.

Police fired into the air to disperse several thousand Left-wing demonstrators who trapped 4000 supporters of Portugal’s Christian Democrat Party in a conference hall in Lisbon early today.

Troops, armed with mach-ine-guns and backed by armoured cars, cordoned off Lisbon’s pavilion of sports when the Christian Democrats held their first big rally last night. For two hours the demonstrators drove back delegates who tried to leave with volleys of stones and shouts of "death to the Christian Democrats.”

Eventually, troops and police began to let the people inside file out through a side door — although some of them still had to run a gauntlet of flying stones. Hospital sources said that 15 people were treated for slight injuries, including an Army captain who received four stitches for a head wound.

Mounted members of the republic guard — a paramilitary unit much used by the Right-wing regime over-

thrown by last year’s military coup — were called up to back the troops cordoning off the building. Demonstrators told journalists that they were stoning the police and republic guard rather than the soldiers, who belonged to the Copcon security forces headed by the Left-wing brigadier, Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho, commander of the April coup. Shouting “Fascists, Fascists,” they smashed windows of parked cars which they believed belonged to people inside the hall. A 60-year-old woman, visI ibly shaken, told journalists jon leaving the pavilion: I “That’s the first and last itime. I shall never attend a jrally again.” Many people refused to peave the building for fear 'that they would be attacked ;by Leftists hiding in surrounding trees.