Urgent update: Harvil Road Protection Camp, Colne valley, Greater London (StopHS2) being evicted now. [13 Feb 11:00] As the anti-HS2 protestors dig in for a 17th night in tunnels Euston, central London… 25 miles west, Harvil Road protection camp in the Colne valley, Greater London is under siege. Harvil road where the on ground opposition to HS2 all began 3.5 years ago, for long the only outpost of resistance to HS2, might breath its last breath tonight.
The National Eviction Team arrived en masse at midnight threatening arrests if protestors high up in the trees in hammocks did not immediately get down. Protestors at the protection camp have said the NET’s forceful and aggressive arrival in the dead of night has put the physical safety of the protestors in jeapordy. Some have been forcefully removed and thrown into the freezing subzero night, others have had police chase them through fields for over a mile.
The camp, once situated in a green and verdant landscape is now surrounded by mile after mile of building site and endless floodlights at night. Protestors currently on the ground at the camp are expecting much more to come especially in the early hours of the morning and have put a call out for support.
London: Harvil Road Protection Camp eviction alert
Brussels: Update from the Solidarity Requisition Campaign
On December 18, 2020, L’Hospitalière was open! Since then, the Solidarity Requisition Campaign continues! Here the news from the different buildings.
L’Hospitalière:
A precarious occupancy agreement has been signed: 80 places of decent housing have been opened, in a building that was otherwise doomed to remain unoccupied. This occupation will also allow the collectives to organize their struggles for the regularization of undocumented migrants and for dignity!
Citydev building:
Negotiations are underway, we hope to be able to conclude a one-year agreement (at least until the end of March 2022). About 30 people are already living in the building. We are waiting for the heating to be turned on again and for the fire department to visit us so that we can complete the move of the Jette occupancy. In all, 200 people will be able to live there. [Read More]
Toulouse: call-out for solidarity with the squat on Fronton Avenue
In September, an unoccupied house in Toulouse‘s Minimes district is squatted and, following legal proceedings, the occupants benefit from the winter truce (recently extended from March 31 to June 1 as part of the health crisis). These two months of extension alone trigger an update of the anti-squat media and political wave of recent months.
On February 7, the newspaper La Dépêche, published a miserable article on the “so-called” situation of Roland, a former employee of the same newspaper… The affair invaded social networks and media in the days that followed, leading to the massive presence of journalists, always there to defend the owners, possessors and other dominants.
Each time, it’s the same rhetoric, the same bogus story: old people who would be put out on the street by squatters. For them, the fable is attractive: it is the landlords who would be in misery and it is the squatters who would be at the origin of the evils of old age. Behind this fable, which plays on pathos, are clear objectives: to support the intensification of repression against squats by promoting new laws reinforcing the rights of landlords (ASAP law and other proposals to parliament). But no one is fooled: if some elderly people cannot afford the EPHAD (housing establishments for dependent elderly people) and others occupy empty houses, it is because the states and capitalism organize and maintain the misery of billions of people, elderly or not. [Read More]
Berlin: Wagenplatz Demo
Come to the Wagenplatz demonstration and support our fight against displacement and for self-determined housing!
On the 20th of February at 2pm we will start from KØPI by bike and join the the truck convoi in Scheffelstrasse at 3pm. Please come with face masks and maintain distance to each other!
No place for gentrification! Defend Wagenplatzes!
Berlin is full of caravan sites that shape the neighbourhoods and fill the streets with life. Our homes are organised in open, solidary structures and offer space for collective togetherness. We stand for self-organised alternatives to a cityscape shaped by capitalist, exploitative logic. But hardly any place has a long-term perspective or secure contract. Almost all of them are constantly and acutely threatened by real estate speculation and the sell-out of the city by the Red-Red-Green Party. We are not alone in this – our neighbours and other self-organised projects, such as the Kiezkneipe Syndikat, Sabot Garden, DieselA and Liebig34, were evicted in 2020. We are in solidarity with all people who are threatened or affected by displacement! We fight for a city where housing is not a commodity!
For self-organised housing! For car life! Let’s take back the city! [Read More]
London: Euston tunnellers update
Today (Sunday 7 Feb) is DAY 12 for the tunnellers. They are still there, deep under Euston Square Gardens, resisting HS2 after the eviction began on 27 January. On Friday, someone about to be cut out of a lockon by bailiffs instead took the lockon and retreated into the tunnel! Yesterday, the person then left of their own accord, having bartered an exchange for for lights, which means in total two people have now left the tunnels (and been arrested). The rest are still underground! The cops are making it difficult for supporters to get close and even fined a member of the legal team who was trying to talk to the tunnellers.
A specialist in tunnel evictions, who spent nine days digging Swampy out at the A30 protests in 1997, said the tunnels are the most extensive since the A130 bypass resistance in Essex which took six weeks to evict. He has seen footage of bailiffs stamping on fingers and trying to bring the tunnel structures down, and said this is incredibly dangerous.
[Read More]
Florence: house arrests, check-in at the cops, following the events of October 30
At dawn on Wednesday, February 3, the Florence police deployed a vast repressive operation against anarchist comrades, in connection with the demonstrations of October 30, when hundreds of people took to the streets of the Tuscan capital against the lack of economic and social responses to the crisis generated by the Covid19 pandemic.
37 suspects in total, 20 searches carried out, some of them inside the squat of Viale Corsica, 81. 7 people are under house arrest, 7 others are obliged to stay with a ban on moving away from their home from 8pm to 7am, and 5 have an obligation to check-in at the cops. The alleged crimes, for various reasons, include damage to public and private property, resistance, violence and injury to public officials, manufacture and launching of incendiary devices. As a first response of solidarity, in the morning there was a demonstration in Piazza Indipendenza, and at 6 p.m. there will be a rally at the squat of Viale Corsica. [Read More]
London: Euston tunnel resistance update
Heading into day six, the Battle for Euston continues. Following the eviction of the above ground Stop HS2 camp, nine people remain inside tunnels below Euston Square in central London, resisting eviction by HS2. HS2 want to evict the camp and destroy the small park to build a temporary taxi rank. The trees have not been chopped down yet because they only got people out of the trees yesterday. The tower known as Buckingham Pallets was dismantled on Saturday. After the taxi rank moves again, the plan will no doubt be to build a shitty expensive cafe and plant a new tree to show green credentials.
The tunnellers are in contact with the outside world and report that Hs2 workers have showered them with dirt and liquid mud, whilst the group supposed to be responsible for their safety are pumping in oxygen which may weaken the tunnel walls. A legal challenge has been launched to ensure the eviction follows legal procedure. There’s been quite a lot of mainstream media coverage so far and most of it is bullshit. The latest thing is that the papers are excited that Swampy, the veteran 1990s road protestor is in the tunnels with his son. He said “We’ve been here five days and they haven’t even cracked the ground to the ground-shaft yet. I reckon we’ll be here for five weeks, or until the pubs are open.” Activist reporting seems to be mainly on fakebook and twatter. Squats are offering support to evicted activists if they aren’t Extinction Rebellion.
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