Ljubljana: Stop demolishing autonomous spaces, everyone come to ROG

By: fawda - January 20th, 2021  Filed under: Communique, News

Call for solidarity

Comrades! Many of you have stayed, fought and loved one of the two squats in Ljubljana. For 15 years Rog was a centre of political activity in the city and in the international movements. Today 19 January 2021, Rog factory was brutally evicted. Many of our comrades were violently beaten and arrested. We are calling for solidarity all around the world. Let’s show the oppressors of all kinds they are messing with the wrong movement!

Statement of Rog factory about eviction

Today, at 7 in the morning, employees of the security company Valina have forcefully entered the spaces of Autonomous factory Rog. Violently, using physical force, they injured some of its users and evicted everybody. Our personal belongings, pets and valuable equipment were left inside, together with 15 years of our dreams, activities, projects, adventures and common experiences. Police has erected fences around Rog and started to beat supporters gathering in support in front of the factory’s gate. In the inside of the complex workers have demolished majority of side structures and smashed windows on the main building that is protected as heritage. At the same time they are taking away, on the unknown location, all the equipment from Rog. More then 10 persons were held in custody, among them some of the injured that need medical help. We do not have access to them and we don’t have information on where all of them were taken. [Read More]

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Slovenia: statement by the Ljubljana Anarchist Initiative in support of autonomous spaces and Radio Študent

By: fawda - January 15th, 2021  Filed under: Communique, News

Three pillars of autonomous, alternative culture and politics in Ljubljana.

The anarchist movement in Ljubljana has been actively involved in the co-creation of the alternative scene for more than ten years. This includes the Autonomous Cultural Centre Metelkova, the Rog Autonomous Factory and Radio Študent. In a time of neoliberal devastation of the communal, the public and the non-commercial, these spaces represent the rare bright spots that make life in an otherwise increasingly gentrified Ljubljana more bearable, which is why many people have not yet moved out. [Read More]

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Slovenia: Autonomous Spaces under Threat. For Communal Disobedience – Against Passivity

By: fawda - September 11th, 2017  Filed under: Communique, News

For the last year the autonomous spaces in the region were deeply marked by a tense athmosphere fueled by constant threats and some serious attacks. In the summer of 2016 the mayor of Ljubljana Zoran Janković ordered the attack of a private security company with neonazis in its ranks on the Autonomous Factory Rog. The community managed to successfully repel the initial attack only to be later confronted with an ongoing and attritive court procedures that threaten to leave individuals with heavy financial and other penalties. In the winter of 2016/17 a new squat Argo in Izola/Isola that had only started with activities was targeted by the machinery of »the bad bank« or BAMC. The latter hired a private security gang which soon after the turn of the year forcefully emptied the squat. Not far away in Koper/Capodistria Inde has been under intense siege since the winter, at first by the orders from BAMC and lately by some enthusiastic local entrepreneurs. Sadly it seems that the battle for Inde is over. Sokolski dom in Novo mesto has been for an entire year dealing with repeating calls from the local autorities to stop with activities and the court procedures are under way. [Read More]

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Koper (Slovenia): Statement about the police attack on ARGO activists

By: fawda - October 31st, 2016  Filed under: Communique, News

Argo_IzolaC.P. Inde strongly condemns the violent police attack on comrades from Argo, which happened on Friday 28/10 2016. Recently we have witnessed repeated attacks on several autonomus communites in Slovenia (Rog, Sokolc, Metelkova). It is clear that with any start of collective creative and critical thinking, there also appears repression. Izola has for long years lacked autonomous cultural venues and has just recently got its own Autonomous Zone Argo. This kind of space is necessary for the development of an active society. Argo is a young collective that still hasn’t blossomed and come to life in full, because power structures immediately cut down the first germs of critical thought. Oppressive authority brutally stamped down on basic human rights of two activists who suffered serious injuries. Both had to seek medical help that the police even refused to provide. Sometimes the fight for a better world has such high price as head concussions and internal bleedings.
To Argo we express the broadest solidarity, because the attack on them is also an attack on every other autonomous community. Only solidarity and mutual aid can bring about a better tomorrow. At the same time we have to fight against the media, which grasped the corrupted story of policemen and demonized our comrades. It has become increasingly clear to whom they serve. Certainly not the people, but rather the capital and power. We must condemn the police violence that has crippled our comrades and we must not remain indifferent or turn the other side. We express our full solidarity with the Argo Collective and we send them a message that in this fight they are not alone. We also strongly condemn any violence against autonomous spaces and communities! They shall not pass! [Read More]

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Slovenia: Autonomous spaces will be defended

By: fawda - August 31st, 2016  Filed under: Communique

During the night between 27th and 28th of August 2016 another one of a series of attacks organized by neo-Nazi groups took place in the autonomous area of Metelkova City in Ljubljana. The Nazis attacked by throwing bottles, pyrotechnics, stones, and shouting fascist slogans which resulted in a few people being hurt, one of them seriously. The police came to the scene and sadly even tried to treat the hurt people as criminals. We stand in solidarity with all the injured and join them in a clearly handed down: “They shall not pass!”

The antimigration discourses that have recently escalated through sensational reporting of the profit-oriented media apparatus, and which are constantly also the agenda of political elites to achieve their populist goals, are creating fertile ground for seemingly isolated and sporadic attacks on autonomous spaces. From our analysis and experience from the field we understand that states as institutions through their antimigration policies, systematic discrimination and racism do not allow to breathe neither to the autonomous spaces nor to people seeking refuge. So it is obvious that we cannot place our trust and hope in these and similar formations. We are aware that in order to fight the ideologies of exclusion the responsability rests in all community members, always and everywhere. [Read More]

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