Thousands of Portuguese protest against government austerity measures

Thousands of Portuguese on Saturday took to streets in Lisbon, the national capital of Portugal, and several other cities, to protest against the government's austerity measures in the country's 2014 draft budget.

The demonstrations, the second of its kind after the government unveiled the budget proposal on Oct. 15, were organized by an organization known as Screw the troika, with support of CGPT or the Portuguese Workers Confederation.

In Lisbon, the protesters marched from the Rossio Square in downtown areas towards their destination of theParliament building. Angry demonstrators, carrying placards in their hands, chanted revolutionary songs and shouted slogans against the government's 2014 draft budget which included more austerity measures such as cutbacks of pensions and reduction in civil servants' paychecks.

Elena Dias, one of the organizers, told Portugal's Lusa News Agency that they called the demonstration online, asking people to take to the streets to voice their discontent with the government' s draft budget and let the government know their intentions.

Portugal has been implementing a tough austerity policy that has been blamed by many for the deepening recession in the country and has also sparked strong discontent among the public under a bailout agreement involving 78 billion euro (about 107 billion U.S. dollars) with the troika comprising the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Central Bank in May 2011.

The new draft budget announced by the government on Oct. 15 again stoked the indignation of the general public and sparked off waves of protests across Portugal.