Action days in Amsterdam: Kick off

Background information about the Kalenderpanden http://www.kalenderpanden.nl/

The action days in Amsterdam against the planned evictions started already on thursday. Some people can’t wait… The main action will be on sunday 14.00h when a demonstration will go through Amsterdam. On tuesday the 3rd the president of the worldbank will visit Amsterdam. According to the Amsterdam squatters he is responsible for most evictions in the world so he will be welcomed by protesters.

The ‘official program’ of the actionweekend is to be found at http://squat.net/en/news/edok280900.html.

Thursday the supporters of the Voku -cheap restaurant at the Kalenderpanden- started with an occupation of a luxury restaurant. report in dutch: http://squat.net/nl/news/garage290900.html

Friday activists went into the bar at the council building to present their ‘Dok-bier’. This special brand made by a local brewery is made to support the Kalenderpanden at the Entrepotdok. The motto under which the beer is marketed is ‘Drinking together, Fighting together, save the Kalendepanden’. The squatters handed out free beer to the guests in the bar. With this they wanted to state that there is need for non-commercial bars like the one at the Entrepotdok (after the eviction we will go to the bar in the council building every day….;). The bartender didn’t like this guesture and threatened to kick out the 50 activists with violence.

Also the SPOK (spekulatie onderzoeks kollektief) did a small action. This group of real estate speculator investigators usually only leave office to eat raw herring, visit the chamber of commerce or drink to much wheat beer. This time they occupied an empty building not to far from their office. Here they stated that the council is too helpfull for owners who let their possesions deteriorate for more than ten years by giving them a demolition permit and a permit to build a another big hotel.. SPOK: http://huizen.dds.nl/~speculan/

Another occupation:

About 70 squatters went in the council ground office around seven o’clock. Here they released ten chicken. With this occupation they protested against the policy of ‘breeding places’. After a long time the council said to help keeping places where there was a breeding ground for culture. At the same time the council evicted some squats and planned to evict more. These squats were and are usually the breeding places for new and low budget activities. After all the evictions in the last few years Amsterdam gets more boring. The money for breeding places comes to late if they keep on evicting them and selling the land to project developers and builders of luxury apartments. more info in dutch: http://squat.net/nl/news/

About the nightly actions we can’t give you a report yet.

Mail press releases about your action to support the Kalenderpanden to webnl [at] squat [dot] net

More actions will follow.

[squat!net]