Athens: Notara 26, five years of solidarity and resistance

The story has been told many a times now. We have heard, witnessed, and lived it in the past five years. In 2015, with the onset of mass migration and what was called the “refugee crisis” we saw the political, social, and urban landscapes of many places change—including Athens, Greece. The events touched and affected the public and private lives of many. The beginning of Noara26 points to one of those moments. A time when a group of people, with ideals and politics of self-organization, collective action, and solidarity were moved to occupy an empty public building in the city’s downtown and to create a place of shelter and safety for thousands of refugees who were abandoned in the streets of Athens.

This September marks the fifth year of our squat’s existence. It is true that we can mark this date in our calendars and remember it as a day of creation and celebration. But the lessons we have learned, the joyful moments we have created, the memories and lives we have shared, the challenges and struggles we have faced and overcome as community are unmeasurable and exceed the limits of time. [Read More]

Athens: 10, 100, thousands of squats. One year of resistance against state terrorism

Today marks one year since the armed hooded men of Chrysochoidis invaded the refugee squat of Spirou Trikoupi 17 and the neighboring Transito squat. It was early in the morning when they forcibly pulled out families with young children from their beds–people who after much hardship and suffering had found a place to grow roots again in these buildings. They took them from their home and distributed them in miserable camps to live in the dirt and with indifference in canvas tents. Since then, a barrage of state terrorist attacks on refugee and political squats has led to evictions, snatching of people, beatings, and arrests. The refugee squats have functioned for many years as unprecedented experiments of practical anti-racism and anti-fascism, self-organization, and solidarity. These spaces have given thousands of people the opportunity to regain their stolen autonomy and the right to define their own lives away from human guards and charity contractors. And almost all of them were evicted. Families with babies, single women, LGBTQI+ people, the sick and disabled, survivors of torture were all brutally detached from their daily lives and relationships and were trapped in nothing but state mercilessness. Political squats that formed cells of social action in neighborhoods, challenging the prevailing ideas of tourism, private property, and commercialization, which turned cities into concrete class pyramids of solitary depravity and social rivalry, were also evicted. [Read More]

Athens: Themistokleus refugee squat evicted

Athens. Greece. Statement by Notara 26 on yesterday’s eviction of the Themistokleus refugee squat.

Today (May 18, 2020) at dawn, the Greek state whose racism can not be bent neither by pandemics, nor by meteorites possibly, went ahead with the eviction of the refugee housing squat of Themistokleus street.
Dozens of people, mostly women refugees with children, lost their home again as well as the minimal protection they had found. They were moved on police buses to Petrou Rallli and then they were dumped in the middle of nowhere to wander the streets homeless and fatigued, with no place to go to.
At the moment they have gathered at Exarchia square with no access to food and housing. Amongst them many babies and children.
We are under no illusion. We don’t expect any kind of salvation from the guard-dogs and their superiors who have raised inhumanity and repression to the ultimate dogma.
Only solidarity can give hope back to those who have been deprived of it.
We call all the friends of Notara26 refugee – immigrant housing squat to support these people in the same way they have been supporting our community all those years.

“IN ORDER TO TURN THE REFUGEES’ JOURNEY TOWARDS SURVIVAL INTO MANKIND’S JOURNEY TOWARDS FREEDOM”

Notara 26, May 18, 2020

Via EnoughisEnough, originally published by Notara 26 Facebook page

Athens: Notara 26 attacked by cops

THEY DON’T INTIMIDATE US, THEY INFURIATE US!

Last night at Notara26 Refugee/Migrant Housing squat, we were attacked for the third time in the past six months by the state uniformed bullies.
Around 4:30 am – only a few minutes after one more attempt by undercover police to intimidate one of our comrades who was on her way to our squat- a riot squad, totally unprovoked, surrounded our squat twice.
The first time they were flashing their torches and laser pointers into our lobby persistently trying to see our faces and how many we were. They then withdrew for about ten minutes but came back reinforced. Τhis time apart from torches and laser pointers, they tried to force our squat’s door open.
These practices of the uniformed state terrorists DO NOT SCARE US! We are here, we continue our everyday struggle against fascism, racism and repression. We form strong solidarity and comradeship ties.
The only result this kind of bullying can have is to bring us even more together and our ranks closer!!!
There is only one thing to say…
WE SHALL MEET AT THE BARRICADES [Read More]

Athens: Refugees return back the lost European Values for Christmas!

In the afternoon of the 24th of December, the community of the refugee housing squat Notara26 moved along towards the Christmas tree in Syntagma square in order to bring back the European values to the European people. 18 big parcels according to the 18 articles of the European convention of human rights were brought to the Christmas tree to remind what is written on paper. In contrast there were pictures how this ‘rights’ function in reality. In their statement the European states claim to honor these values, but the people are wondering where to find them.

“We are not three and we are not kings and we didn’t come to iconize a new born person. We are thousands, we refuse kingdoms and idols, and we are craving for a society with respect and equal rights for everybody. Even if we are coming from same regions than the mythological three guys 2019 years ago, the reasons for our journeys are totally different. We escaped wars, authoritarian dictatorships, torture, ethnic or gender-based discrimination and famine. We came here in order to find worth living conditions. [Read More]

Athens (Greece): Notara26 issues ultimatum to Greek government

Notara 26 issues ultimatum to Greek government, answering back to the government’s ultimatum to evacuate all squats within 15 days.

From occupied Exarchia we give a 15 days deadline to resign tho all those who dream of the revival of the dictatorship along with their propaganda mechanisms, through beatings, virtual rapes, stripping of women, denial of legal rights, intimidations and surveillance of comrades, workers and students. These are only some of the practices of the increasing repression and onslaught towards the people’s struggle. Their excellence and normality consists of closed borders, closed camps, closed minds and then the smokestacks will follow.
We have been given a 15day deadline. 15 days…
Notara 26 has existed for 1500 days. It has sheltered more than 9000 people from 15 different countries of origin. Hundreds of solidarians from all over the planet have participated in the project. Thousands of different stories. One constant common struggle for solidarity, selforganisation of our lives, acceptance of difference and uniqueness. One struggle in our squat, our neighborhood, the street.

Ideas cannot be supressed. Notara 26 is here and will stay alive !
You cannot evict a movement. Not now, not ever ! [Read More]

Greece: We stand against state repression

The state and capitalism continue to target the freedom of the social base and appropriate its labour and resources. In recent years we have experienced some of the most violent attacks on this freedom through the mass impoverishment of the already oppressed and exploited. At the same time, a widespread social resistance and solidarity movement has formed. People have created a variety of self-organized spaces such as housing infrastructures, social medical centers, community kitchens, open parks and public spaces. In spite of setbacks, the movement has created a solid social ground and accumulated considerable knowledge and experience. Through squats, political groups, base unions, squares and neighbourhood assemblies we have formed communities of struggle with strong social bonds. Communities oriented towards society, with a critical eye all the same. At times, the movement has had to use violence as a means of defending and expanding free spaces against state repression, capitalist interests and fascist attacks. It is a movement that grows in diversity and vibrancy, despite the ongoing criminalisation of solidarity and mobility.

In the context of this socio-class conflict, on Monday 26/8, the state, armed with police forces, seized Exarchia and evicted four squats. Two of these squats were migrant homes—Transito and Spirou Trikoupi 17, from where the police abducted 144 migrants, uprooting them from their places of residence for a second time and isolating them in what the state calls detention centers. Evictions were also carried out in an ongoing housing and political squat in Assimaki Fotila street, and the Gare squat, where three arrests were made. [Read More]

Athens: Demonstration on 14th of september. Solidarity will win!

[an update on the repressive campaign by the state and call for international mobilizations in solidarity with the squats and the anarchist movement in Greece]

At dawn on August 26th, strong repression forces evicted four squats in the neighborhood of Exarcheia, arrested three squatters and detained 143 refugees and immigrants. While men, women and children refugees were piled in police vans by the armed hooded men of the Special Repression Counter-Terrorist Unit, institutional fascism released its ideological propaganda through the media: a representantive of Greek Police compared the repression forces to a “vaccum” of new technology that will wipe out from Exarcheia “the disturbing dust”, the refugees and immigrants, and afterwards the real “trash”, the anarchists, announcing the continuation of the repressive operation and their declared target.

The recent police invasions are a first manifestation of the repressive campaign, announced by state officials, against the anarchist movement, the squats, the self-organized structures of housing immigrants and refugees, the world of solidarity, social and class resistance in general. A repressive campaign that consists the spearhead of the state and capitalism’s attack on the plebeians of society, aiming to terrorize them and neutralize resistance, in order to proceed uninterruptedly to the onslaught of state and capitalist brutality. The elections of July 7th marked the continuation of the imposition of suffocating living conditions for the workers and the unemployed, the imprisonment of immigrants and refugees in concentration camps and the deaths in the borders, the intensification of the looting of social wealth and nature, the attempt to establish the state of emergency. The government of New Democracy is building on the attempted neutralization of social and class struggles and the tens of repression attacks against squats during the administration of Syriza, promising to crush the people of the struggle – to all those that have stood and are still standing against the plans of the authority. [Read More]

Greece: Exarcheia under police occupation!

Alert! What we have been announcing to you for a month and a half has just begun this morning, just before dawn. Athens’ famous rebel and supportive neighbourhood is completely surrounded by huge police forces: many riot police buses (MAT), anti-terrorist untis (OPKE), police on motorbikes (DIAS), members of the secret police (asfalitès), as well as a helicopter and several drones.

A unique place in Europe for its high concentration of squats and other self-managed spaces, but also for its resistance against repression and its solidarity with precarious and migrants, Exarcheia has been in the sight of the right-wing government since its election on 7 July. The new Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis had made it a personal affair, especially since he had been mocked in early August for failing to achieve his goal of “cleaning Exarcheia in a month” as he had announced with great fanfare.

This morning, 4 squats were evicted: Spirou Trikoupi 17, Transito, Rosa de Foc and Gare. The offensive currently concerns the north-western part of the district, with the notable exception of the Notara 26 squat, which is considered better guarded and very symbolically important for the district as the first historical squat of the “refugee crisis” in downtown Athens. [Read More]

Greece: Anarchist refugee squats prepare for State onslaught

City_Plaza_AthensA new spate of recent evictions and interventions by the Greek State against refugee solidarity occupations run by the anarchist movement in Athens has prompted callouts for a major emergency gathering this Friday.

The callout and associated international day of action comes in the wake of a series of crackdowns and repression [1][2] against the solidarity movement, which has helped thousands of refugees self-organise to house themselves and defend against far-right violence since the Syrian crisis began.

It has been supported by six major occupied centres and groups, Oniro, City Plaza, 5th School, Notara 26, Underground Railroad, Spirou Trikoupi, Jasmine School and Acharnon School, which have put out a joint statement on the deteriorating situation in the city:

During the last month we witnessed the State escalating its anti-immigration policy of restrictions against refugees and the solidarity movement. In Addition to the EU management of migration issues which include forcing people to live in horrible conditions ,deporting them and denying them their basic human rights, the Greek government is revealing its totalitarian face by demonstrating its repression power through evicting political and housing squats for refugees. [Read More]

Athens: Announcement of Squat Notara 26 about the attack of August 24th

20160824_incendiary_attack_Notara_26_Athens_GreeceOn Wednesday August 24th at 3:45 a.m. the Housing Squat for Refugees and Migrants Notara 26 received an incendiary attack. The acting method of the arsonists we consider to be a clear murderous act, organised with the goal to cause – apart from the serious material damage – also loss of human lives. The timing of this cowardly act was chosen during August, when as the arsonists believed the reflexes of the solidarity movement would be sluggish. In vain though…

After the attack with molotov and gas-bottle bombs the safeguard of the refugees and the assistance of the solidarity acted immediately, using the fire extinguishers of the squat. The over 130 lives that where seriously endangered where saved solely by the immediate reaction of the total of the residents, of the solidarity and the neighbours of the squat, as well as with the participation of the fire department – although it derogatively characterised the Notara 26 squat as a storage in its press release, implying that no people where resident at the location.

This particular event is one link in the long chain of attacks against the migrant squats, refugees, as well as the free social spaces, which consists of a cooperation of state and parastate – where the first acts using the law (Orphanage, Nikis squat, Hurriya) and the second with the usual mafia practices (Vancouver, Avtonomo Steki, Zaimi, Analipsi, Kaniggos) – targeting the solidarity movement. [Read More]

Greece: Criminalizing solidarity. Syriza’s war on the movements

20160729_occupied_syriza_hq_ThessalonikiThe eviction of three occupied refugee shelters in Thessaloniki marks another episode in the Greek government’s war on grassroots solidarity efforts.

In the early morning of July 27, refugee families and supporters who were sleeping at Thessaloniki’s three occupied refugee shelters — Nikis, Orfanotrofeio and Hurriya — were woken up by police in riot gear. In a well-orchestrated police operation, hundreds of people were detained. Most occupants with refugee status were released, while some were transported to military-run refugee reception centers. The rest of the occupants, 74 people of more than a dozen different nationalities, were taken into police custody.

Immediately after Orfanotrofeio was evacuated, bulldozers marched in and demolished the building, an abandoned orphanage “donated” five years ago to the enterprising Greek Orthodox Church by a previous government. Under the rubble were buried tons of clothes, foodstuffs and medicine collected there by grassroots solidarity structures to be distributed to refugee families in need. Hours later, No Border Kitchen, an autonomous structure providing food to refugees in the island of Lesvos, was also forcefully evicted by the police. [Read More]