A number of Rotterdammers have squatted a building in Delfshaven. They want to make a statement to the city council. Rotterdam has been pushing people on the minimum wage out of the city for years. The activists are now drawing a line and want a higher minimum wage and affordable housing.
Inequality in Rotterdam is becoming more and more visible. Everywhere in the city, social housing is poorly maintained and demolished to make way for expensive housing. Rents continue to rise in our city and the income of Rotterdammers with a minimum wage or a benefit is lagging behind. There is also less and less room for their social activities and initiatives. They are being pushed out of our city. There seems to be no place for them anymore.
We do not accept this. That is why we support the Rotterdammers who have moved into the building at Havenstraat 231. They are claiming back a piece of Rotterdam to draw attention to the struggle of many Rotterdammers. Together with them we want the wealth and space in our city to be distributed more fairly. Only then can every Rotterdammer participate and have a place. This can be done by raising the minimum wage to 14 euros per hour in 2022 and by properly maintaining and renovating social housing.
Our city council did not want to listen before. Once again we call on them to ensure that every Rotterdammer can live affordably and have a decent income. We call on the City of Rotterdam to choose for us.
We want a thriving, colorful city in which everyone can live and thrive instead of survive. [Read More]
Rotterdam: building squatted in Delfshaven
London: Euston Station HS2 protest camp resist eviction
This morning the London end of the ongoing direct action campaign against HS2 received some unwelcome visitors in the form of around a hundred cops, bailiffs and private security guards.
The HS2 rail project has to be the most unpopular project in the history of transport infrastructure. So far the planned high-speed rail link has managed to go over budget by a modest sixty-one billion pounds and scientific studies have concluded that its construction alone will ensure that it will eventually offer no net reduction in carbon emissions. But will increase noise pollution and decrease air quality for well over twenty-one thousand dwellings along its route.
On top of this the project will ensure the demolition of literally hundreds of homes, the destruction or damage to one hundred and eight ancient woodlands along with the eradication of twenty one designated nature reserves.
[Read More]
Angers: eviction of the Grande Ourse and nazi attack, the city where it is good to live
On Thursday, January 21, 2021, in the middle of winter, the forces of law and order and the prefecture proceeded to evict the Grande Ourse squat, a place of militancy and solidarity. It housed many homeless people, students, the working poor … The issues of poverty, equality, solidarity, were at the center of the actions carried out by its activists, they regularly organized rounds to distribute food to people on the streets. People from outside the city could also get together, there were regular cultural events, film screenings, debates… But what is the problem, at a time when students in Angers are facing a housing shortage, at a time when the covid-19 crisis is plunging an increasingly large proportion of young workers into poverty? The problem is that these activists are holding a political discourse, that by occupying an unused building the holiness of private property has been called into question. That’s unacceptable, we don’t question that, especially when that questioning benefits people who don’t intend to use it for capitalist ends, especially when it benefits people who advocate values other than competition and individual financial enrichment. So here we are, the prefecture will return the furniture store to its legitimate owner. He will be able to put back beds where no one will ever sleep or make other projects allowing him to increase his capital a little more. [Read More]
Wuppertal (Germany): A statement by the Osterholz Forest Occupation
Wuppertal. Germany. A statement by the Osterholz Forest Occupation, a forest that is occupied since August 2019. The Oetelshofen company wants to clear a part of the Osterholz forest to store the waste of their lime pit. In the past weeks cop activity has increased in the forest and it all smells like the state is preparing an eviction of the forest occupation. The Osterholz Occupation is now asking people to come to the forest.
The forest has called us and we have heard its call. We were absent for a long time, but we are back on the island of freedom. The oasis has grown, a lot has changed. Old platforms have disappeared and new ones have been built. It is beautiful here. We thank the people who have stayed here for so long without us.
[Read More]
Arlon: Call to resist. Eviction threat at the Zablière on January 26
For more than a year, a piece of land has been torn from the concrete. The former Schoppach sandpit, where wild animals and plants used to coexist with Sunday walks, is threatened by a zoning project for businesses including offices and parking lots, and this since it was bought from the municipality by Idelux-Aive.
Some people decided to occupy this forest in order to defend it against this threat, responding to a call from local residents desperate for attention to their voice. This year was an opportunity to bring about another turning point in the struggle “for the climate” by making it take a real ecological and social turn; from the occupation of roundabouts by yellow vests to a forest occupation by Zadists. In this way, the tree houses made it possible to hear the cries of the birds.
For a year, the winter, police and mafia threats did not succeed in lowering the mood of the Zablière’s occupants, not even a few slanderous opponents. From this impulse of resistance were born direct actions, a book of photos and poetry, a film, a free university, friendships and a lot of other things impossible to describe without being there. [Read More]
Ljubljana: Everyone on the streets. Against the social destruction of the city!
Dear residents of Ljubljana, the whole municipality and all that come here to work, study or because of other obligationas and free-time activities! All are witnesses to the violent intervention of Municipality of Ljubljana (MOL) in the space of Autonomous Factory Rog (AT Rog).
Protest, Friday 22.1.2021 at 18h at Prešernov trg
What happened to the community of AT Rog can happen to many of us. Especially if they do not belong to the rich and property-owning well-off part of society. What happened in Ljubljana can happen in any other town. Violent expulsion of less well-off individuals, families and other communities is written in the fabric of capitalist system of extraction. The so called legal order and the so called rule of law have been exposed many times as instruments that were established mainly in the interest of financial and political elites. Moreover, the state and municipal authorities chose to exploit exactly the moment, when many hardly manage to make ends meet due to changed living conditions as we deal with the issue of basic mental, physical and economic survival. They base themselves in repressive measures, financial punishments and the police apparatus. Any and all political activity outside the parliamentarian arena is forbidden. Schools are closed, rent and other living costs are rising constantly, the workers’ rights are being taken away. They declared war on the people and it is important to understand this. [Read More]
Vitry-sur-Seine: welcome to the Kunda library!
This library project is part of the more general dynamics of our place of life since February 2020. We are about fifty people from all paths of life occupying these buildings belonging to the department of Val de Marne. We are squatting to meet a need to have a roof over our heads and because we refuse to give in to the blackmail of work, rent and money. In short, we squat to find a place to live and to fight.
Since our installation, we have developed various activities that we wish to pursue as best we can despite the pandemic and continue to develop new ones. It is for these reasons that we now present our new library. This self-managed library is, in the continuity of our place, anti-capitalist and against all forms of oppression. Just like our solidarity market, the film club, the sports hall or the various workshops, it is part of a desire for autonomy against institutions, to develop our own contents in a break with a commercial logic. Thus, in this struggle, and since, just like going to the cinema, a book costs at least 10 bucks, we wish to make available for free all the books we can get. This library is thus composed only of recuperation, donations (and theft). We see it as a participatory place for meetings and exchanges and encourage as many people as possible to take advantage of it to propose various activities such as reading circles, book presentations, sales and all other things. This library wants to be as varied as possible. It includes books ranging from theater to political theory, practical guides and novels. A feminist mobile shelf, made up of the meetings without cis men taking place at our place, will also be available during the opening days of the library. A children’s corner with games and stories is also present.
The library will now be open every other Sunday on the same day as the film club sessions, and the return of books will be possible either every Sunday during the solidarity market or through a box in front of our house. Loans will be for a period of one month, renewable for two weeks. We are counting on you to come and read, discuss, participate and meet us! [Read More]
Ljubljana: Stop demolishing autonomous spaces, everyone come to ROG
Call for solidarity
Comrades! Many of you have stayed, fought and loved one of the two squats in Ljubljana. For 15 years Rog was a centre of political activity in the city and in the international movements. Today 19 January 2021, Rog factory was brutally evicted. Many of our comrades were violently beaten and arrested. We are calling for solidarity all around the world. Let’s show the oppressors of all kinds they are messing with the wrong movement!
Statement of Rog factory about eviction
Today, at 7 in the morning, employees of the security company Valina have forcefully entered the spaces of Autonomous factory Rog. Violently, using physical force, they injured some of its users and evicted everybody. Our personal belongings, pets and valuable equipment were left inside, together with 15 years of our dreams, activities, projects, adventures and common experiences. Police has erected fences around Rog and started to beat supporters gathering in support in front of the factory’s gate. In the inside of the complex workers have demolished majority of side structures and smashed windows on the main building that is protected as heritage. At the same time they are taking away, on the unknown location, all the equipment from Rog. More then 10 persons were held in custody, among them some of the injured that need medical help. We do not have access to them and we don’t have information on where all of them were taken. [Read More]
Greece: New Year’s Notes under Lockdown
At this time, we are reminded of our comrades through banners and graffiti, through brief encounters under the guise of getting exercise between curfews, and through the courageous actions of those who turn to the night to act as the day becomes too dangerous.
The anarchist movement in Greece is among the largest in the world, proportionate to the population. However, we are now experiencing unprecedented repression as a result of the pandemic and resulting political opportunism. We remain stagnated in lockdown, overwhelmed by the reign of the right and its defenders. Ecocide, social control, new crackdowns on universities, and general repression of those excluded from or deemed enemies of the Greek state continue to expand in the shadow of COVID-19.
We will highlight a few recent incidents of concern relating to the solidarity efforts essential for the global anarchist movement. We sometimes struggle to write these updates, not wishing to simply present a monthly bulletin on depression from Greece. We write from a perspective that many people here share, best summarized by this comment that captures the theme of so many interactions here: “Some days good, some days bad. Just feel stuck, and not even sure what I’m waiting for.”
During this enforced pause in our lives, those who hold power are rushing through policies and automation disguised as pandemic response. This is part of a broader effort to gentrify Greek society. [Read More]
Ljubljana: Autonomous factory Rog evicted
Ljubljana. Slovenia. January 19. 2021. In the early morning hours riot cops showed up at the autonomous factory Rog. They started to evict the squatted facilities without an announcement and without a legal basis.
In 2002 the Municipality of Ljubljana bought the 7,000 square-metres complex with several buildings in “downtown” Ljubljana but never used it. The former bicyle factory was occupied in 2006 and since then it was used as an autonomous social center.
This morning Valina secutity arrived at 07:00am and started to evict the Rog and injured several people during the eviction. The cops started to install fences around the Rog and started to beat people in front of the premises. At least nine people were arrested. Three injured people had to be treated in a hospital.
[Read More]
Brussels: new occupation of empty building
As of Friday, January 15, 6,936 square meters formerly used by Opel – located at 552 chaussée de Gand in Molenbeek – are occupied to rehouse some of the 200 people about to be evicted from their homes in Jette. The opening of this new squat in Molenbeek follows the opening of the Hospitalière, a former clinic in Saint-Gilles that has become home to 80 people since December 18. This action announces the launch of a campaign of “solidarity occupations”.
As collectives and associations of people with and without papers, actors of the right to housing, inhabitants of Brussels, we are organizing ourselves once again with our means to enforce the right to housing and to demand the regularization of undocumented migrants.
We will continue to open and occupy empty buildings as long as the public authorities do not provide sufficient structural responses to the social and health crisis. By launching this campaign, we affirm that we are determined to organize ourselves in the face of the absurdity of thousands of empty buildings while hundreds of people sleep outside in our city. The opening of about ten squats has made it possible to house several hundred people during the spring 2020 confinement. Today, we want to make this solidarity and self-organized response visible, while refuting the idea that this is a structural and sufficient solution. It is up to the public authorities to make it a priority. [Read More]
Slovenia: statement by the Ljubljana Anarchist Initiative in support of autonomous spaces and Radio Študent
Three pillars of autonomous, alternative culture and politics in Ljubljana.
The anarchist movement in Ljubljana has been actively involved in the co-creation of the alternative scene for more than ten years. This includes the Autonomous Cultural Centre Metelkova, the Rog Autonomous Factory and Radio Študent. In a time of neoliberal devastation of the communal, the public and the non-commercial, these spaces represent the rare bright spots that make life in an otherwise increasingly gentrified Ljubljana more bearable, which is why many people have not yet moved out. [Read More]
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