London: Grow Heathrow 5th birthday, 28th February!

By: fawda - January 15th, 2015  Filed under: News

201502_London_Grow_Heathrow_5th_birthdayWho would have thought it? It’s been 5 years of growing tomatoes, learning how to use renewable energy, protecting from planes, pollution and capitalism and finding out about what community really means.. so it’s time to party…

Saturday 28th February 11am till late: 5th BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION! Expect workshops, guest speakers, fun and games, pizzas, live music, tours, the cake competition, late night djs, and more.
Friday, 27th February 7pm: Pre-Birthday Performance
Sunday 1st March 3pm: Post-Birthday Artistic Performance

Any Help Appreciated – Help us start the next 5 years with a bang by joining in with preparation throughout January and February. We need help fixing, building and painting on site, cooking cakes and spreading the word. Come to the Grow Heathrow site and join in with tasks, especially on a Thursday as that’s our community work day. On the day, we’ll also need help cooking, entertaining the littluns, playing music and more. [Read More]

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Fitzrovia, London: Love Activists find new home

By: dolph-l - January 12th, 2015  Filed under: News

[update evicted january 13]

“We have the facilities to provide television studios and sound proof rooms for anyone who wishes to set up ‘the people’s media outlet’ or something to that effect, this space can not be offered for more than 24 hours unless we can establish it and have occupiers to hold off any eviction attempt in that period. We have an opportunity here to occupy media and spread love through the air waves, let’s not let this escape the hands of the revolutionaries!” – Love Activists, January 6th 2015

The Love Activists direct action group who had occupied the former Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) building near Trafalgar Square in December are currently occupying an empty commercial building in Rathbone Place.

The group who had set up a food bank and soup kitchen at the RBS building were evicted by bailiffs and the police on Christmas eve, but undeterred they returned the following day to serve a Christmas lunch for the homeless. [Read More]

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A Squatters Guide to Belfast

By: dolph-l - January 11th, 2015  Filed under: essay

“You can’t squat in Belfast. Why? Because you… well you just can’t.” – Les Enfant Sans Souci

Draconian laws. Psycho cops. Paramilitaries. Hoods with petrol bombs. Squatting in Northern Ireland presents us with its own unique set of challenges. The very existence of these challenges has been used (and is still used) by generations of hippies, anarchists, punks and autonomists (traditional overt squatters) as an excuse not to bother trying. Not that Northern Ireland is particularly bad in this regard; in every thriving squat scene in Europe, from Amsterdam to Barcelona to London, people report the hardest bit was overcoming the initial fear and pessimism. In Helsinki, Dublin and Belgrade people are just beginning to take part in overt political squatting again and are encountering much the same nihilist apathy, at least initially. [Read More]

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Mexico City: Chanti Ollin squat was violently evicted but reoccupied!

By: freedom - January 9th, 2015  Filed under: News
January 9, 2015

After huge solidarity the Zapatista affiliated Chanti Ollin has been reoccupied.. though at least 9 people are still arrested, needing bail money, and some injured, the damage is huge, things have been robbed, children terrorised, workshops ransacked, etc. [Read More]

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Eviction Delayed Again: The Expropriated Bank, Barcelona

By: freedom - January 8th, 2015  Filed under: Communique, News

The ‘Expropriated Bank’ is one of 7 occupied social centers in  ex banks in and around Barcelona.  Though long overdue for eviction the State has hesitated, perhaps a bit nervous after failing to evict Can Vies last year due to huge solidarity.

Maybe they don’t want to coincide with widespread public anger at the jailing of 7 activists for being anarchists.  (Mass Demos vs. Gag law and Arrest of Anarchists)

Perhaps they wish to avoid more opposition to their corrupt banks which have presided over the eviction of up to half a million people to balance their crooked books.

Whatever the reason the ‘Expropriated Bank’ in Gracia barrio is still going strong. Here’s a translation of their latest communiqué…..

[Read More]

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London: Love Activists in court over illegal eviction & callout for March for the Homeless in April

By: dolph-l - January 7th, 2015  Filed under: News

From Counterfire, December 29th 2014:

A group who occupied an empty bank to shelter and feed homeless people over Christmas are fighting to establish that their eviction was unlawful reports Dan Poulton

Activists who occupied a former NatWest bank over the Christmas period went before a civil court this morning [December 29th 2014] following their eviction by bailiffs last Wednesday, Christmas Eve. The premises at 2a Charing Cross Road had lain empty for two years and are now owned by Greencap Ltd.

The ‘Love HQ‘ occupation aimed to shelter and feed homeless people over the bitter winter period and raise awareness of a major housing and homelessness crisis in London and the rest of the country. [Read More]

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Berlin: Solidarity sabotage with those incarcerated as part of Operation Pandora in Spain

By: dolph-l - January 7th, 2015  Filed under: Communique

As a sign of our solidarity with projects raided on December 16th, 2014, in Barcelona and in other cities as well as the comrades detained in the course of Operation Pandora, we burnt a vehicle of DHL in the early hours of January 5th, 2015, in the neighbourhood of Neukölln in Berlin.

DHL was attacked not only for their collaboration with the army, but also for the reason of international distribution of vehicles of this company, which constitutes an appropriate target for sabotage actions. [Read More]

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Spain: Words written a few months ago by some of the Operation Pandora prisoners

By: dolph-l - January 7th, 2015  Filed under: Communique

SOLIDARITY AND STRUGGLE

For those who struggle, solidarity is not an empty concept, distant from our offensive capacity and the conflicts that develop in the struggle itself.

For those who struggle, solidarity is not an “issue” that emerges only at particular repressive “moments”, because repression is not a “moment”, it’s an otherwise inevitable and permanent part of the state’s mechanisms against those who rebel. [Read More]

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Roybon, France: Communique from the MaquiZAD – on the recent roadblock

By: dolph-l - January 7th, 2015  Filed under: Communique, News

It’s now more than one month since the occupation of the Forest House, and that the cabins replace the massively destructive machines in the forest. We are here, and good here.

In spite of the cold and the snow, in spite of the pressure exerted by the gendarmerie[1], in spite of the various attacks that we have suffered, in spite of the frequent sabotages of structures, life goes on at the Maquizad.

[Read More]

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Spanish State: Security is not a crime, Riseup.net statement after Pandora operation

By: R! - January 6th, 2015  Filed under: Communique, News, Press release

On Tuesday December 16th, a large police operation took place in the Spanish State. Fourteen houses and social centers were raided in Barcelona, Sabadell, Manresa, and Madrid. Books, leaflets, computers were seized and eleven people were arrested and sent to the Audiencia Nacional, a special court handling issues of “national interest”, in Madrid. They are accused of incorporation, promotion, management, and membership of a terrorist organisation. However, lawyers for the defence denounce a lack of transparency, saying that their clients have had to make statements without knowing what they are accused of. “[They] speak of terrorism without specifying concrete criminal acts, or concrete individualized facts attributed to each of them” 2. When challenged on this, Judge Bermúdez responded: “I am not investigating specific acts, I am investigating the organization, and the threat they might pose in the future” 1; making this yet another case of apparently preventative arrests.

Four of the detainees have been released, but seven have been jailed pending trial. The reasons given by the judge for their continued detention include the posession of certain books, “the production of publications and forms of communication”, and the fact that the defendants “used emails with extreme security measures, such as the RISE UP server” 2.

We reject this Kafka-esque criminalization of social movements, and the ludicrous and extremely alarming implication that protecting one’s internet privacy is tantamount to terrorism.

Riseup, like any other email provider, has an obligation to protect the privacy of its users. Many of the “extreme security measures” used by Riseup are common best practices for online security and are also used by providers such as hotmail, GMail or Facebook. However, unlike these providers, Riseup is not willing to allow illegal backdoors or sell our users’ data to third parties.
[Read More]

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Canary Islands: Sabotage & painted slogans in solidarity with the prisoners of Operation Pandora

By: dolph-l - January 3rd, 2015  Filed under: Communique

[Other Pandora solidarity actions in Leipzig, Barcelona, Lisbon, Paris and San Francisco]

In support of our anarchist and feminist compañeras detained recently as part of the so-called “Pandora case”, and making clear our revulsion at this murderous capitalist and heteropatriarchal system, on the 30th of December 2014 from the colony of the Canary Islands we carried out actions of sabotage against ATMs and painted some graffiti in solidarity with the accused. [Read More]

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Leipzig: Deutsche Bank stoned in solidarity with anarchists arrested in Operation Pandora

By: dolph-l - January 2nd, 2015  Filed under: Communique

In solidarity with anarchists arrested in Spain, we wrecked the Deutsche Bank branch in Leipzig.

On the 16th December 2014 in Spain, different police forces conducted coordinated raids in 12 apartments, resulting in 11 anarchists arrested. One of the pretexts for why the raids took place was that the accused had destroyed cashpoints. [Read More]

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