Teachers and employees of several schools will demonstrate in the late afternoon of next Monday in a slow march on some bridges in the country. The protest was initially called to Lisbon by a group of teachers (Missão Escola Pública), who called for national mobilization. Education professionals from Santarém and Viana do Castelo responded to the appeal and will also demonstrate at 6:23 pm.
In the case of Santarém, the march and stoppage will take place on the D. Luís I Bridge, in Almeirim. To the north, in Viana do Castelo, the protest is planned for the Eiffel Bridge. The information was shared on the organization’s Instagram, and confirmed to PÚBLICO by Rui Foles, one of the 13 organizers. The time for the concentrations is symbolic, “6:23 PM”, and represents the six years, six months and 23 days of working time that the teachers saw frozen.
In Lisbon, according to the statements of Rui Foles, a teacher at the Monte de Caparica School Group, in Almada, “between 500 and a thousand people” are expected. The concentration is scheduled for the Pragal Bridge and for the side pedestrian accesses of 25 de Abril. The action script states that, from 6 pm, the “support vehicles coming from the North and South banks of Greater Lisbon, in slow-moving caravans and horns”, will travel towards the Pragal Bridge, to stop at the set time. .
The initiative is being organized by an independent group of 13 teachers from Greater Lisbon. “Missão Escola Pública is a completely non-partisan movement of teachers, which fights for their rights and for the defense of the Public School, under the aegis ‘The School builds bridges! Help us to open paths!’, aware that only in union with all society will be able to fight for the inestimable value that is Education”, informed the organization in a note sent to the media on Wednesday, when the protest was announced.
The protest has already been communicated to Almada City Council and the PSP, assures the organization. About the event, the PSP says, in a written response sent to PÚBLICO, that “the monitoring and promotion of the security conditions necessary for the exercise of the right of assembly and demonstration constitutes, for the Public Security Police, a common daily practice, since the citizens usually exercise it in the main urban centers”.
“As a result of this experience, for the aforementioned time window, the PSP triggered the necessary procedures, from contact with the promoters of each event for adequate planning (for example, the suspension of road traffic) to the forecast of the adequate number of Police to guarantee safety of the event”, assures that security force.