# The times they are a changing...



## wink (Aug 23, 2011)

Algarve Daily News today.........

Portugal's riot police used in disproportinate action at Sunday market

Overbearing police prescence A huge operation mounted by the GNR, ASAE and SEF descended on the flea market in sleepy Barão de São João on Sunday in a disproportionate display of official bullying.


The popular small Sunday market near Bensafrim, western Algarve, is the only regular fixture of its kind in the area. Anyone can turn up on the day without having to pay for a pitch. The market is described locally as the one social event in the area that attracts young and old in an environment that fosters good humour and a feeling of community in one of the poorest areas of the Algarve where unemployment is at an historic high and many are desperate for a few euros.

The market is low-key and well known locally attracting every type of buyer and seller from travelling salespeople to teenagers selling their old clothes and CDs. Travellers sell homemade bread and pesto from their camper vans; musicians play here there and everywhere and carpenters and others who make things in their spare time come along in the hope of selling a few nicknacs.Unnecessary police action

On Sunday morning the carnival atmosphere was shattered as up to 20 police cars and GNR jeeps arrived at the market and sealed off exits to enable trading standards and police officers to see what and who they could fine. Many traders had licenses and pay taxes but many documents of course were not the right ones for selling food outisde.

Drivers of cars parked in a neat row along the roadside were fined €60 each, papers were demanded and a ‘mobile public attention’ van with a bank card payment machine was parked up for people to use to pay their fines, or risk losing all their documentats until they did. Those that managed to drive off was stopped by waiting GNR and asked for their guia de transporte or facturas to prove the ownership of the second-hand tat that many were selling.

Teenagers selling old clothes were fined a minimum of €12 by trading standards authority ASAE even though most had yet to sell anything. Traders were logged, documents were demanded, IDs werre carefully checked and fines were handed out.

Six riot police (força de intervenção) in black unifirms with sticks hanging at their sides stood in a menacing row in front of the fair as a visual deterrent to anyone wanting to leave, deemed likely to complain or cause a scene.

"The only thing missing is the dogs", commented one passer by. Another said "there were no thieves or bandits here and no one had called the police."

A retired local teacher who started to take photographs was told her camera would be confiscated. Which law her action was about to contravene was not explained. She had already been fined over €130 for the failure to adequately display an insurance certificate on her windscreen despite showing police the documentation inside her vehicle showing the new one had been paid for.

Three police and one motoristThe whole experience for distressed locals served as a chilling reminder that Portugal’s police remain instruments of a state machine that is being used to curb freedoms, stamp out creativity, tax every single transaction however insignificant, and fine kids for selling old clothes.

The various police services when behaving as they did today at a tiny rural fair close to the middle of nowhere, will achieve the opposite of what they have been tasked to achieve. Fines will have been collected, but barely enough to cover the cost of the ‘operation.’ More importantly several hundred members of the public will now be more inclined to flout the law, evade VAT, pay cash, not ask for receipts, under-declare on their income tax returns, and genrally be unhelpful to the authorities at every opportunity.

Another eye-witness said: "They weren't only hassling food vendors, they went to every open stall: I've seen with them my own eyes fining an old Portuguese guy who was daring to sell two plastic bags full of used clothes.

Even the son of a friend of mine was fined for selling his old toys: the kid is 13 years old but those snakes in uniform didn't give a **** about that, the child got his multa (by the way: nobody knows how high the fine will be) and has to go for paying to the Lagos Câmara."

The good work that police and the community have managed to achieve in fostering a closer working relationship seems to have been confined to cases involving home owners and tourists. The police congratulate themselves on working with ‘the community’ when high profile burglaries and break-ins are solved and publicised, yet they use wholly disproportional force and threatening displays of force on a different part of the community at the lower end of the economic scale.

Another lady vendor commented; "One seller got beaten up and the whole action was really horrible especially the way they treated some of the people. Its so sad: all the nice lovely social events get destroyed. Its not only bad for the general reputation of the state amongst the Portuguese (some women cried) but also for the many tourist and foreign residents who love to come to that market."

It is a foolish system that attempts to crush human endeavour by state bullying and intimidation. Actions like this, which are not unique, will rebound in surprising ways on those running the state machine.

A couple from Derbyshire, on holday in Luz for two weeks rest and relaxation, were at the fair when it was raided and commented "Portugal has been wonderful and we've fallen in love with the place and the people, but if this sort of police behaviour is normal then we certainly wouldn't want to live here."


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