Police station hit by Molotov cocktails after Lisbon protest clashes

A police station and several vehicles were damaged by Molotov cocktails in and around Lisbon overnight, just hours after clashes erupted during a demonstration against police violence, officials said Tuesday.

The clashes broke out at the end of the demonstration against racism and police violence in central Lisbon, with some protesters hurling stones at the security forces who responded with rubber bullets.

Several police were lightly injured by the stones and four people were arrested.

Hours later “three Molotov cocktails were thrown at a police station” in Setubal, a port city just south of the capital, police said. Nobody was hurt.

Separately, there was another string of attacks in the northern suburbs “also using Molotov cocktails” which damaged a dozen vehicles in Odivelas and Loures, police said, indicating they were holding an 18-year-old for questioning.

Police said there was nothing to immediately link the vandalism with the Lisbon protest at which some 200 people turned out to demonstrate against the police’s perceived heavy-handed intervention to break up a weekend brawl in the southern suburb of Seixal.