Netherlands: Stop the new law against squatting!!!

Squatting is not the problem, but the solution…..!!!!

The new bill on squatting has no added value whatsoever. Since the Squatting and Vacant Property Act came into force in 2010, the squatting of homes and business premises has been reduced enormously. People who want to squat are frightened by the sanctions that are imposed if caught in the act. Owners have a large number of options to bridge any temporary vacancies by registering or by hiring anti-squat companies.
It is precisely the massive deployment of vacancy management by owners that has made squatting considerably more difficult. Owners also have a legal option to have a squatted property to their disposal again. At least, provided they have adequate concrete plans for that building. It is this legal intermediate step that makes it clear whether owners speculate on properties or not. In that sense, squatters have always had a signal function. This important function disappears with this new law.
Squatting is already complicated enough for squatters under current legislation. Practice shows that most buildings remain squatted for less than 3 or 4 months. Squatters who have been working on this for a number of years often have to give up after such a period because it is difficult to constantly have to leave under pressure and start something new. The current practice and law is therefore really no problem for owners. They usually only lose the use of their property for a short period of time. [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]

Freiburg (Germany): KTS-anniversary – 25 years and no end in sight!

The autonomous social centre KTS Freiburg exists since 25 years and we would like to celebrate this unique place of culture and politics. From the 16th until the 26th of October a diverse program of noncommercial exhibitions, DIY culture, protest, demonstrations and celebrations will be awaiting you. We are looking forward to a cracking festival full of libertarian, autonomous, queer-feminist, radical-ecological and political education intervention, which will strengthen our structures and will make our anti-capitalistic utopias visible.

After the fights of the 1980s and through squatting in Vauban from 1994 on, the “new autonomous social centre” was established in the Baslerstraße since 1998. Here, we organise and fight for emancipation and against the right – and intend to stay a thorn in side of the reactionaries. The repressions of the last years, attacks by our political enemies and the lawsuit against Indymedia linksunten do not keep us from expanding this place for anarchist politics. By now, several generations are celebrating and fighting with the backing of the autonomous social centre, and, with all their power, stand up against the swing to the right within society – which seems to be more needed than ever. [Read More]

Berlin: Wagenplatz DieselA and Rummelsburger Bucht faces eviction!

Since May 25th we squatted the area at Hauptstraße 2-3 in Rummelsburger Bucht. Extensive infrastructure was built and installed for our living space as well as for the public and communal area WIDER-STRAND. There are many solidarity events at WIDER-STRAND, connecting with our neighbours and other projects in Berlin.
We do not want to live on the sideways of the streets anymore. The wagenplatz DieselA needs a safe place for living. Besides that we want to make a spotlight on the disgusting way how the plan for the Rummelsburger Bucht was agreed on.
Hundreds of people will loose their living space and/or place for activities and free time. The Coral World is planned to be build here for 500 000 visitors a year as a tourist attraction, the interest is not to keep alternative living spaces. The City of the Rich expands!
For the last months we were ignored by police, politicians and the owners, now the situation is getting more acute. They brought a lot of fences to secure and control the future construction site that will be enormous. Some days ago we heard the rumor that the whole Bucht should be evicted by 2nd September 2019. [Read More]

Utrecht: Protest action against new anti squat law

Today, there was an attempt to resquat the Watertoren on the Amsterdamsestraatweg in Utrecht. This water tower has been squatted many times already. Today, squatters unfortunately failed. The water tower, a designated national monument, has not been in use since 1986. The real estate developer who bought it in 2014, has not succeeded yet in developing anything. At the same time, alternative uses are not tolerated and eviction for emptiness has been the systematic answer. This while the monumental building is falling into disrepair.

Today’s squatting action was intended as a protest against the plan of the CDA and VVD to tighten up the law against squatting. The aim of the 2010 law was to tackle both squatting and vacancy. In recent years, squatters have been the main target of prosecution, while only a few cities have been acting against emptiness. The new proposal gives squatters hardly any time and space to defend themselves. The right of residence of people who take matters into their own hands, is so further eroded. [Read More]

Athens: Statement from Spirou Trikoupi 17

The last weeks, after the elections, we are witnessing the development of a more totalitarian and far right state, that threatens the existence of our self-organized and free structures, as well as the life of the most poor and oppressed parts of this society. The new government started from the very first day showing its real face by taking control of the medias, disestablishing the ministry of migration and transferring its jurisdiction to the ministry of public order, under the authority of the police. They continued with massive arrests of people without “legal” papers, they strengthened the borders controls, pushing back to Turkey “illegally” people, and they banned the access of refugees and migrants to the national health system, by not providing them the social insurance number that it is needed. This also have immediate consequences to the access of the children to the education system, that without vaccines they are not allowed to attend the school. One other dimension of the same policy concerned Exarcheia and all the structures of this neighborhood that they are against this rotten, hierarchical and corrupted system. Their plan is to gentrify and take control of the only place in Athens that still resists. Immediately they attacked two refugees’ squats, Notara 26 and Hotel Oneiro, trying to cut down the water and the electricity forcing hundreds of people being scared for their lives and freedom.
[Read More]

Bologna (Italy): The bulldozers of the Partito Democratico against XM24

The bulldozers of the PD of Bologna against XM24, the historic social center of Via Fioravanti, active for 17 years. After years of threats, at dawn on Tuesday August 6, bulldozers, armored vehicles and dozens and dozens of uniforms showed up to clear the XM24. The declared objective of the mayor PD Merola’s junta is to gentrify the area, between students for money and other real estate operations, cloaked in the usual rhetoric of “decorum”. Inside and outside XM24 there are hundreds of solidarity workers, to defend the experience of self-management of the social space.

5 p.m. – The activists who have been resisting the eviction of the XM24 since dawn this morning are still on the roof. Gradually, the other people who were inside the building went out and joined the garrison that is still in progress in the parking lot near the social center. In the meantime, the workers continue to work quickly to demolish most of the structures inside the building and take away the material. The destruction of the garden also began a short while ago. It began shortly after 15.30, after the meeting at the police headquarters between a delegation of the XM24, the city councilor for culture, Matteo Lepore and Valerio Montalto, general manager of the municipality. [Read More]

Hambach Forest: Skillsharing camp in September

The second Skillsharing Camp of this year will take place from September 15th to 25th.
Details will follow soon.
We, the orga team, are currently very understaffed. If you are currently in the forest and / or in the meadow and you can imagine helping, then write to skillsharing [dot] hambacherforst [at] riseup [dot] net. No prior knowledge required 😉

We still don’t have a kitchen crew. If you happen to be a culinary collective that can imagine cooking in the period then write as well.

Also artists, speakers and people who are already in demand can write. More information will follow soon 🙂

Hambi bleibt

Pisa: Galeone Occupato has been evicted

On 30 July 2019 has been evicted Galeone Occupato, located at via Lucchese 65, in Pisa, an anarchist squatted building existing since 26 May 2017. A huge deployment of law enforcement, along with the fire brigade, arrived near the building at around 10.30 am. Following the raid, a comrade was arrested (later released) and another comrade barricaded himself on the roof of the building in an attempt to resist the eviction as long as possible, while comrades in solidarity arrived nearby. Finally the Galeone was evicted after a few hours.

Eleven people were notified of investigations with allegations of abusive occupation, theft of electricity and damage to Enel (company that manages energy supply) cabins. With reference to these investigations, the public prosecutor had initially requested the obligation not to enter the city (“foglio di via”) with the obligation to sign to the police station for a certain period. [Read More]