London: Update from Autonomous Winter Shelter

Good morning everyone, I hope you’re all well. 115 Grays Inn road (an old stmungos hostel, now taken over by one housing and the Riverside group) has been taken over by a group of people looking out for others safety and well-being, in protest to the housing crisis and opened it to the homeless. We have loads of rooms that need furnishing, as well as kitchen equipment of all sorts. Can anyone help please by dropping down any donations? If any groups want to send your guests here for a shower and a bite to eat, a clean change of clothes, then please feel free as that’s why we’re here. Operating on a first come first served basis to keep it fair to all from 10pm to 10am. If no rooms are available, there will ALWAYS be food and a hot drink,clothes and bedding. Thank you any help would be fantastic and greatly appreciated. The work we do is only possible with YOUR help and assistance.

London: Autonomous Winter Shelter opened in former St. Mungo’s hostel

Freedom has received the following communique:

There were over 2688 people recorded to be sleeping rough in London on any one night in 2020.

The temperature at night will be cold enough to cause hypothermia for 23 days this month. That’s 23 days where there’s a real possibility that someone sleeping on the street may not wake up.

It doesn’t have to be like this. [Read More]

London: Report back from School of Trespass

Thank you to everyone who joined us on the 16th and 17th October, for joyful Weekend of Resistance!

A squatted building was used to host talks, workshops, foodshares and art. By inviting people to trespass with us, we wanted to show the creative power of trespass. Because one of the features of the PCSC bill is the further criminalisation of trespass. The explicit target of the government is GRT communities who ready face prejudice and oppression. And who can tell how else this anti-trespass legislation will be applied and interpreted? Squatting, rough sleeping, hiking outside of the beaten track, living in a van or a boat, organising free parties, all these practices will be made more difficult. Any form of protest will be repressed with equal brutality and intolerance, another target of the Bill.
[Read More]

London: TAA celebrates 20 years

This weekend the Temporary Autonomous Arts (TAA) festival squatted a row of derelict buildings in North London to celebrate 20 years of creative requisitioning of disused spaces. The event ran over 3 evenings from last Thursday to the wee late hours of Sunday, and was an open space for all artists to participate and display their works, championing a DIY or die, anticapitalist aesthetic and approach. Attended by hundreds, the programme featured spoken word and performative onstage carnage. There were live shows from Agents of Lexicon, Hot Dog Grrrl and the Sesame Seed Buns, anarchopunk poetry from George F, 2-bit rave from Killdren and Kidziku’s fuzz-bass screamo, a cabaret featuring genderfuck drag from Jizmik Hunt and many more, with the overall culture being explicitly queer, trans-allied and anti-TERF. The works of dozens of artists such as the Nave, oneslutriot, caineruable, Born In Dust amongst many successfully transformed a gutted and collapsing row of buildings into an interactive smorgasbord of visual delights for the scores of delighted revellers who attended. The first major squatted event in London post-COVID besides raves and parties, the TAA represents a cross-over point for squatters, artists and others to reunite and reignite their passion for creative destruction and mutual co-operation under the principle of “don’t be a DICK” – give people the benefit of doubt when it comes to their boundaries, respect other people’s opinions”. The atmosphere was one of carnivalistic return with attendees travelling from across the UK and internationally from the autonomous scene of Europe. The corridors were jam-packed with people who often had not seen one another for years at a time, giving the event the feel of a grand reunion of comrades.
[Read More]

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London: Space Pirates Squatfest

During the weekend of 24-27th September 2021, a building in Central London will be opened to the public, hosting the first in a series of events organised by The Space Pirates. Ahoy World is an invitation and guide to this first event. There are three main parts: A Retrospective, a section on transformative patterns, and an introduction to Space Pirates. The retrospective section includes squats whose focus is on mutual aid and direct action where the intention is to be – at least partly – open to the public. Transformative Patterns looks at models and theories around conscientious organising. Lastly, there is an introduction to The Space Pirates. If you’d like to get involved, soon or in the future, either by attending or hosting, please get in touch asap 411615.squat.net.

Long before we’ve got a court summons, the Space Pirates Squatfest weekend will be over.

Hopefully,

kinda!

Source

London: The Serious Annoyance continue to trespass despite judgement

Freedom Newspaper received the following communique from squatters occupying the former Camberwell police station in South London. The group, known as the Serious Annoyance, lost the legal battle to remain in possession of the property on Tuesday July 20th but remain in occupation in defiance of the granting of an interim possession order (IPO). This high court judgement criminalises anyone remaining in the property from 2.30pm on Wednesday onwards, meaning that the occupiers face arrest and potentially up to six months imprisonment for failing to leave. They have been in occupation since July 9th, when they released this initial statement and are calling for people to support by sharing their story and being present on the street outside pending the threatened eviction.

The police station occupation is part of the resurgent militant squatting movement that has coalesced from a mixture of anarchists, environmental protesters and travellers against the proposed new anti-trespass laws being brought forward by the UK government. The new laws are seen as an outright attack on those from nomadic cultures, as well as against the burgeoning anti-HS2 protest movement. A former police station was occupied earlier this year in response to the Sarah Everard murder, as well as last year in Paddington Green, and previously back in 2014. [Read More]

London: Squatters take Camberwell Cop Shop (2.0)

The Serious Annoyance has returned to occupy the empty Camberwell Police Station, Camberwell Church St SE5, as we continue in our fight to #killthebill and highlight the destructive role of the police.

This week, the draconian PCSC Bill passed its third reading in the commons as the state continues to enforce the expansion of police powers that do nothing but increase the ruling class’s ability to repress us. We know the cops don’t protect us – their resources aren’t focused on catching so-called “criminals”, but on protecting the wealth and power of the capitalist class. We also know that no demand to defund the police is enough – the bastard Tories have already been defunding the police for years! As all these empty cop shops prove… Instead we must build a world which abolishes the police by organsing our own communities and making the cops completely unnecessary.We do not and we will not accept increased police powers which effectively ban protest and criminalise trespass, something which amounts to the ethnic cleansing of the GRT community in the UK by making a travelling life impossible. [Read More]

London: Free pizza versus trespass bill

Resist Anti-Trespass (R-AT) has squatted an abandoned pizza restaurant [in central London] and will be serving free pizza all day [today 23 march] as part of an action to resist the authoritarian police bill that criminalizes trespass and protest!

Come down to Wardour St, W1F and show your support by trespassing for free pizza!
Trespass is about mutual aid, protest and survival. We will not be criminalized for existing!

Love, rage and pizza
Pizza R-AT
Source

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London: Mayor’s Office threatens illegal eviction against squatters protesting police violence

The Mayor’s Office of Policing and Crime has threatened an illegal eviction against squatters currently occupying the former Cavendish Road police station in Clapham Common. The squatters are occupying in protest against police violence and the new police crackdown bill. The bill has been delayed from progressing to committee stage in the face of widespread national outrage and protests across the country.

This morning the Advisory Service for Squatters tweeted that the Mayor’s Office was threatening to breach Section 6 of the Criminal Law Act 1977, as well as the European Convention on Human Rights. In the notice, the Mayor’s Office threatens to ‘exercise its right to self-help’ and remove the occupiers under common law. County Enforcement Group, a notorious bailiff firm, are carrying out the action.

Has this threat to breach S6 CLA 1977 and ECHR been authorised by @MOPACLdn or are they just letting cowboy bailiffs get away with shit as usual? https://t.co/KNmpqCibc4

— Advisory Service for Squatters (@ASSquattheworld) March 23, 2021

Source

Bristol: ‘Burn Baby Burn!’

The chant goes up into the air as the flames of the cop van rise higher and higher, burning away a pressure that has been building for far too long.
The cop station’s windows are kicked in to the roaring joy of the crowd, its raining rocks from above on the riot cops from youths who’ve occupied part of its roof. Repeated attacks on the cop lines are visibly putting the fear into them. Bottles rain down on the cop dog unit’s failed attempt to assault the mob from behind. Riot shields and batons liberated from the cops are used to fight back, a piece of their own medicine. Others are caring for people sprayed with mace, while sound systems ring out. Another cop car is burning round the corner, this is like nothing we have seen before…

This is the scene in Bristol in 2021, 10 years since the Stokes Croft & August riots in 2011. The riot that erupted last night was a continuation of our combative memories, but from seeing so many new young uncontrollables it is the beginning of a new wave. Nothing much has changed on this prison island since 2011, if anything the conditions that led to those days are still with us, more repressive than ever. We’re being pushed over the edge, as the system of control demands either lick the boot or have our way of life extinguished. [Read More]

London: Copshop squatted

Squatters and autonomous activists have occupied the former Clapham Common Police Station to demand the withdrawal of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill and the end of the femicide recently highlighted by the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving Met police officer.

As the closest cop shop to where Sarah was last seen, the occupation of this building holds particular importance and meaning at this time. Although the bill has been postponed, we have to keep fighting it to ensure it does not pass. And in the meantime, violence against women continues. We must seize this moment where we find ourselves UNITED in rage, unified in our fight against the ongoing global femicide and to remember people like Sarah, Blessing Olusegun and countless others and to build our fight to end violence against women.

We also seek to bring attention to Section 4 of the Bill which criminalises trespass, a racist move by this Tory government which will affect predominantly travellers and van dwellers but also squatters, protest camps and the homeless. We hope that all those who resist the expansion of police powers in the Tories Bill will also join us in resisting any amended versions of that Bill which retain this racist attack which will make a travelling way of life almost impossible.
[Read More]

London: Grow Heathrow getting evicted

Reports coming in of Grow Heathrow (11 years old, previously on S!N) getting evicted this morning. As of noon, two people are resisting, any support welcome, comms are down.