Support needed at Mostafa’s at 6am Wednesday [24th] for 2nd round of evictions!
After a brutal day, Sweetstopia was evicted, as was the People’s Regeneration Show Home, but Mostafa and the Sweets Way Resists community house remain. We expect bailiffs and police to return tomorrow (Wednesday) morning and need support. Please come to 46 Sweets Way at 6am if you can, to help keep Mostafa in his home!
This is the Sweets Way Resists statement on the current mass eviction happening across the estate:
After more than six months of occupation to prevent the demolition of 142 family homes, Barnet Council, Annington Properties, the London Metropolitan Police and other emergency services are colluding to carry out a violent eviction of the entire Sweets Way estate.
Mostafa and his family remain in their home, but will be in court today at 3pm challenging the use of high court bailiffs for their eviction. If they lose, it seems inevitable that the eviction will extend to 46 Sweets Way immediately, while they are still in at the courthouse.
What we are facing right now is the hard edge of social cleansing; when we dig in and fight to stay in our homes and our communities in London, we are met with violence. This is the brutal truth of ‘regeneration’ and ‘gentrification.’
The use of public resources to carry out this eviction is especially disturbing, and the Met and Council have a lot to answer for. Public money should not be spent protecting Annington’s private investment, particularly as its returns will end up in Guernsey and the Cayman Islands, robbing the British public of any benefits from this twisted arrangement, once again.
With or without the occupation, we will continue to fight Annington and Barnet at every juncture. We will not stand by and accept the social cleansing of our community, or our city.
We have impeded development for more than six months; many families have been rehoused in better situations, and we have shone a bright light on the vile processes through which poor and working people are being cleansed from the capital.
We remind everyone in London and beyond who are facing other battles in the fight for homes and community, that we need to stand together to keep our communities intact, especially as so few politicians are willing to stand with us.
We may lose the estate, but we have joined Focus E15, New Era, Our West Hendon, Housing Action Southwark and Lambeth, the Aylesbury resistance and others in making it clear that social cleansing will come at an immense price for Councils and developers alike.
It is no longer business as usual for the architects of social cleansing.
The fight is not over! Come to Mostafa’s house at 46 Sweets Way for 6am Wednesday to help stop the eviction of the final original Sweets Way resident!
[Published via Sweets Way Resists, September 23rd]
