On friday 26 june, in Exarchia, the Greek state evicted and sealed Dervenion 56 and the building at Dervenion 52. An immediate gathering of solidarity was held on Exarcheia square for several hours. In the evening of the same day, a solidarity march was held with the participation of 300 people. The march ended at the Dervenion squat, barricades were set up around the perimeter and then comrades broke the concrete blocks of shame. Police never came and after some hours the protesters left. Riot cops made again an operation the next morning, building again a concrete wall in front of the squat’s door. According to information, in the following days, various solidarity actions followed, a demonstration took place on the main shopping street of Athens, Ermou, where slogans were shouted, and apparently some people attacked multinational clothing companies in Ermou in the occupied -by the police-, center of Athens. Even the rich yuppie nephew of the Prime Minister, the mayor of Athens, Costas Bakogiannis, could not escape the anger caused by the evictions. The pioneer of violent gentrification and his bodyguards were attacked with coffees and other items by dozens of people at a local religious festival. In the following days a march was held again at Exarcheia where comrades demolished the walls of the sealed migrants’ squats at Themistokleous 58 and Spirou Trikoupi 15. All these days, texts of solidarity were written and banners were put in various locations in Greece.
From our side, as a gesture in solidarity with Dervenion 56 and as a reminder to the people of power, we teared down the concrete blocks that held the door of Matrozou 45 squat in Koukaki. Our message is that “Nothing is forgotten.” We sat as long as we needed to and left greeting our neighbors and handing out texts to the people. On the same day, a rap concert of solidarity with Dervenion 56, was held on Exarcheia square. At the end of the concert, the organizers call the people to march together towards the squat and to open it. People headed for the squat, barricades were set up everywhere, and the demolition of the concrete blocks became a common practice with the participation of anyone who wished. After a while the cops chose to attack but this time there were people who responded with Molotov cocktails and stones. Clashes spread throughout the neighborhood, and in retaliation, the cops beat, tortured, arrested, and broke into shops. Anger grows.
The Dervenion 56 squat, in Exarcheia, opened in September 2015, hosting solidarity structures for immigrants and refugees. Medical care, food, clothing, lessons, etc. At the same time, many anarchist and anti-authoritarian groups found shelter to organize their struggles and hold events that had anti-fascist, feminist, ecological and, of course, anarchist content. Events that do not fit into the festivals of authority, events without financial and institutional exclusion. In the times of the imposition of the quarantine fascist law, Dervenion 56 continued to operate, breaking the depressive misery of isolation and “individual responsibility”. A large part of the a / a scene was still active on its squatted ground and continued to organize and intervene against fascist laws, forming mutual aid structures supporting hundreds of locals and immigrants, unemployed, all of social base people. It was this space where collective processes, common ground and time survived against the situation that the state tried to impose.
Without a doubt, the state’s motives for evicting Dervenion 56 can be found in the squats contents, the actions of solidarity and mutual aid. Where militants meet, where authority is doubted, there is an enemy of the state. Everything else about violence, property, unpaid bills, legality, drug dealing, are just fake excuses from the state, the bankers and their business associates. In any case, they themselves are the main exponents of oppression, arbitrariness and destruction, actions that they refer to as “development”. The squatters, along with the rest of society’s resisting people, are considered an internal enemy because they do not go with the flow, because they do not submit to the dictates of those in power, because they see no salvation in capitalist development, but only another trick to make some profits through our own exploitation. A more recent example is the “big walk of Athens”, a project made with the tax money of the workers of Athens, the same workers who cannot stay in the center due to the gentrification that they themselves are called to pay.
The part of society that is considered an internal enemy of the state, are those who revolt and clash with the units of repression when the state either left or right kills, when it leads us to economic misery, when it destroys the environment, when it drowns free life into even deeper conservative waters. The “internal enemy of the state” seems to step back and shrink from time to time, but in reality we always prepare the conditions to come forward again, to defend neighborhoods, roads, rivers and mountains, to transform schools, universities and working spaces in battlefields.
A battle between those few who want everything for themselves against a countless crowd that wants EVERYTHING FOR EVERYONE.
Dervenion is still a house of the movement and as such, we will defend it.
We are calling for international actions in solidarity with the squats. Make the Greek state, the Greek capital and its partners regret the choice they made to attack the movement and its spaces in Greece.
To defend Dervenion 56 and all squats, to prepare the ground for the coming social uprising.
Koukaki Squat Community
Dervenion 56, Exarcheia
https://squ.at/r/1lps
https://dervenion56.espivblogs.net/
Koukaki Squat Community
m45community [at] riseup [dot] net
https://squ.at/r/43uf
Some squats in Athens: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/city/athens/country/GR/squated/squat
Some evicted squats: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/city/athens/country/GR/field_active/1/squated/evicted
Groups in Athens: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/city/athens/country/GR
Events in Athens: https://radar.squat.net/en/events/city/Athens/country/GR
Some squats in Greece: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/GR/squated/squat
Groups in Greece: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/GR
Events in Greece: https://radar.squat.net/en/events/country/GR
Indymedia Athens https://athens.indymedia.org/post/1606123/
