Elba squat in Warzaw threatened with eviction!

By: Rosa - January 14th, 2012  Filed under: News

There’s an alarm call [in polish language] about eviction on their website : http://elba.bzzz.net

Elba was established in autumn 2004 and is run by collective of people who decide about the place by consensus. The collective include both people living here and people organising events and running workshops, all taking part in decision making.
They are involved in series of social and political actions, and we try to make our squat an active place, open for many different ideas. Among other things you will find here freeshop, bike workshop, rehearsal room, screenprinting workshop, climbing wall, skatepark, cafeteria and concert/perfomance room.

Hopefully more detailed information in english language soon.

See also here for more background information about Elba : http://www.spottedbylocals.com/warsaw/squat-elba

 

Tags: , ,

Sydney: Some anarchists celebrate New Year’s Eve by dropping eighteen banners from five empty buildings in the CBD

By: xxx - January 12th, 2012  Filed under: News

Found on Indymedia-Australia:

Some Sydney anarchists celebrate NYE by dropping 18 banners from 5 empty buildings in the CBD
Black Rose books – January 5th, 2012

On New Years Eve while the city streets were packed with drunken revelers and riot cops, a group of anarchist dropped 18 banners from five empty buildings in centre of Sydney. Sound-systems were also set up in two of the buildings with an anti-police hip hop/punk/dubstep mix which blasted out onto the streets. Anarchist slogans and symbols were sprayed on the windows in the buildings and on buses and banks in the streets below.

One of the locations from which we dropped 4 banners and set up a sound-system was a 7 story office building, chosen in solidarity with comrades in the Occupy Sydney movement who had recently squatted the space for a week in an attempt to build a social centre. [Read More]

Tags: ,

Sydney: Workshop about squatting movements in Europe, at Occupy Sydney

By: xxx - January 12th, 2012  Filed under: News

Next saturday, January 14th, from 4:00pm to 5:00pm, let’s go to Occupy Sydney’s free school, there’s gonna be a workshop about squatting movements in Europe!

Location:
Occupy Sydney
Martin Place
CBD, Sydney
(In the case of heavy rain on Saturday, we will relocate some of Free School to the Visual Arts Space at 43/51 Cowper Wharf Rd. Walk through the Domain from Martin Place.)

The workshop is about squatting movements in Europe, focusing on the diversity of squats we can find in France and in Spain, taking different examples like the squats open in Barcelona in 2010 during the general strike and some other examples in France. A few words will be told about the intersquat solidarity in Europe and about the international website squat.net.
Some tips will be given about how to find and open and empty space. And afterwards, a discussion will happen, making links/relations between what happens in Europe and what happens in Sydney/Australia.

 

Tags: , ,

UK – Police Raids on Occupy Squats

By: sisulscz - January 11th, 2012  Filed under: News

As UK occupations squat more buildings the police, many of whom have criminal records are flouting the law to harass protesters, the Lords are debating making squatting residential buildings illegal, the government plans to make hundreds of thousands homeless and Occupy LSX is threatened with eviction.
[Read More]

Tags: ,

Watching the value of property melt away – The increase in squatting across the U$A

By: sisulscz - January 11th, 2012  Filed under: News

Although it is hard to hear what is really happening on the ground in U$A, it appears that recently there has been an increase in squatting in cities across the United States. Obviously, squatting is often a covert activity, but it seems that a few factors have dovetailed to facilitate the emergence of a new, public squatting movement. This sWatching the value of property melt away –
The increase in squatting across the U$Ahort article will provide a background to these events and a report of the actions which we have heard about. Hopefully these are merely the tip of the iceberg….
[Read More]

Tags: , ,

Police Harass Occupy Liverpool at Legal Squat

By: sisulscz - January 10th, 2012  Filed under: News

The “new location” is a squat in a derelict office block on Preston Street and until the above message was posted its location was kept secret. I always thought the decision not to tell anyone the new location was odd but I have heard that it was intended as a half-way-house for the camp to re-group and store their stuff before moving on to a new camp. The old location was extremely exposed and as a result was often battered by high winds; I’m surprised the occupiers stayed as long as they did.
[Read More]

Tags: , , ,

New York City: An interview with Rob Robinson from Picture the Homeless and Take Back the Land Movement

By: xxx - January 2nd, 2012  Filed under: Interviews

Published in “Brisbane From Below” n°1 (Brisbane, 2011).

Could you tell us a bit about yourself and how you became involved with Picture the Homeless?

No problem. I became involved with Picture the Homeless after spending 10 months in a NYC shelter. I was advocating within that shelter for better maintenance conditions, adherence to rules and better food. The director advised me to take my work to a higher level and I joined something called the New York City Coalition for the Continuum of Care (NYCCCoC). This group makes up 33% of the vote on how some 60-80 million USD are spent on homeless services. Picture the Homeless had access to the email list of (NYCCCoC) and I started to receive emails about the work they were doing. I showed up at a housing meeting in November 2006, liked what I heard and became a member. [Read More]

Tags: ,

Ontario (Canada): An Interview with John from Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP)

By: xxx - January 2nd, 2012  Filed under: Interviews

Published in “Brisbane From Below” n°1 (Brisbane, 2011).

Justice, Dignity, Resistance: An Interview with John from Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP)

Could you tell us a bit about yourself and how you became involved with OCAP?

I was a worker at a factory in Ontario in the 1980s and, after being made unemployed, I helped form a union of the unemployed. In 1990, this organization helped out in the campaign that led to the formation of OCAP. [Read More]

Tags: , ,