London: Report back from School of Trespass

Thank you to everyone who joined us on the 16th and 17th October, for joyful Weekend of Resistance!

A squatted building was used to host talks, workshops, foodshares and art. By inviting people to trespass with us, we wanted to show the creative power of trespass. Because one of the features of the PCSC bill is the further criminalisation of trespass. The explicit target of the government is GRT communities who ready face prejudice and oppression. And who can tell how else this anti-trespass legislation will be applied and interpreted? Squatting, rough sleeping, hiking outside of the beaten track, living in a van or a boat, organising free parties, all these practices will be made more difficult. Any form of protest will be repressed with equal brutality and intolerance, another target of the Bill.
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Wendover (UK): Anti HS2 campaigners hold out underground

The eviction of the Wendover Active Resistance camp has now entered its third week. All aboveground defences were obliterated in the first week, but a team of hardy tunnellers still hangs on, and in fact they’re aiming to be there until Christmas at least. One Freedom reporter visited the site recently and said “It looked like the climactic sequence of Fantastic Mr Fox, dozens of men in hi-viz with machines and floodlights digging after a stubborn adversary”.

The site is fenced off, but surface-dwelling activists are determined to show solidarity to their comrades in the underground. A small camp has been set up opposite (directions here) to let people visit and show their support. The main camp was called W.A.R (Wendover Active Resistance), so this new offshoot has been christened P.E.A.C.E, (Piss Easily Allover Capitalism)*, and despite the offputting title will be supplying tea and coffee.
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Wendover (UK): Come join the resistance

Wendover Active Resistance camp, part of the ongoing direct action campaign against white elephant and eco-atrocity HS2, was surrounded by around a hundred bailiffs, HS2 security and specialist eviction teams in the early hours of Sunday morning (10th October). The defenders are well dug in but would really appreciate ground support outside the perimeter. The eviction is expected to take at least a fortnight. The site on the A413 ( just outside the village postcode HP22 6PN) was first squatted two years ago. In that time activists have constructed a network of tunnels, treehouses and lock ons. Local opinion is firmly against the HS2, which smashes through this scenic part of the true blue Chilterns, ploughing through local beauty spots and wrecking aquifers.

London: TAA celebrates 20 years

This weekend the Temporary Autonomous Arts (TAA) festival squatted a row of derelict buildings in North London to celebrate 20 years of creative requisitioning of disused spaces. The event ran over 3 evenings from last Thursday to the wee late hours of Sunday, and was an open space for all artists to participate and display their works, championing a DIY or die, anticapitalist aesthetic and approach. Attended by hundreds, the programme featured spoken word and performative onstage carnage. There were live shows from Agents of Lexicon, Hot Dog Grrrl and the Sesame Seed Buns, anarchopunk poetry from George F, 2-bit rave from Killdren and Kidziku’s fuzz-bass screamo, a cabaret featuring genderfuck drag from Jizmik Hunt and many more, with the overall culture being explicitly queer, trans-allied and anti-TERF. The works of dozens of artists such as the Nave, oneslutriot, caineruable, Born In Dust amongst many successfully transformed a gutted and collapsing row of buildings into an interactive smorgasbord of visual delights for the scores of delighted revellers who attended. The first major squatted event in London post-COVID besides raves and parties, the TAA represents a cross-over point for squatters, artists and others to reunite and reignite their passion for creative destruction and mutual co-operation under the principle of “don’t be a DICK” – give people the benefit of doubt when it comes to their boundaries, respect other people’s opinions”. The atmosphere was one of carnivalistic return with attendees travelling from across the UK and internationally from the autonomous scene of Europe. The corridors were jam-packed with people who often had not seen one another for years at a time, giving the event the feel of a grand reunion of comrades.
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Germany: Call for the defense of Lützerath

For more than a year, Aktivist_innen have been living and fighting in Lützerath, a small village right on the edge of the Garzweiler open-pit mine in the Rhineland. What is left of Lützerath is to fall victim to RWE’s capitalist destructive rage this autumn so that the company can continue to burn lignite.

Sounds familiar? It is!
Many of us fought in the Hambach Forest and made sure that it was preserved. Now it is up to us again to put the company and its exploitation logic in its place. If they want to destroy Lützerath this autumn, they are taking on a movement that can no longer be stopped. We are facing the last showdown for coal in the Rhineland!

And for that we need you now!
We have created a place for rebellious life. Here we try to form ourselves without capitalist performance constraints and to put our autonomy into practice. We call this area to be defended “Zone a defendre”, or ZAD, following the example of French battles. Because Lützerath is threatened and is attacked by RWE and police. From October, Tree cutting and clearing machines come here. That’s why we say – let’s defend the ZADRheinland together. We defended the Hambi – we will also defend Lützerath! The 1.5 degree limit runs in front of Lützerath and we will enforce its compliance here. We have already paralyzed power plants, cost RWE millions and shown more than once what we think of a state and system that puts profits above people. We no longer negotiate in the trees or in the hut village, because the climate crisis knows no compromises.

So: pack your climbing harness and tools and prepare for an autumn of resistance. Are you missing the skills? No problem; Lützerath is a place of joint learning, of looking after each other and of further education.

So come here and join us!

Wendover (UK): Eviction begins on anti HS2 fortress in Buckinghamshire

Wendover Active Resistance camp, part of the ongoing direct action campaign against white elephant and eco-atrocity HS2, was surrounded by around a hundred bailiffs, HS2 security and specialist eviction teams in the early hours of Sunday morning (10th October). The defenders are well dug in but would really appreciate ground support outside the perimeter. The eviction is expected to take at least a fortnight.

The site on the A413 ( just outside the village postcode HP22 6PN) was first squatted two years ago. In that time activists have constructed a network of tunnels, treehouses and lock ons. Local opinion is firmly against the HS2, which smashes through this scenic part of the true blue Chilterns, ploughing through local beauty spots and wrecking aquifers.
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London: Space Pirates Squatfest

During the weekend of 24-27th September 2021, a building in Central London will be opened to the public, hosting the first in a series of events organised by The Space Pirates. Ahoy World is an invitation and guide to this first event. There are three main parts: A Retrospective, a section on transformative patterns, and an introduction to Space Pirates. The retrospective section includes squats whose focus is on mutual aid and direct action where the intention is to be – at least partly – open to the public. Transformative Patterns looks at models and theories around conscientious organising. Lastly, there is an introduction to The Space Pirates. If you’d like to get involved, soon or in the future, either by attending or hosting, please get in touch asap 411615.squat.net.

Long before we’ve got a court summons, the Space Pirates Squatfest weekend will be over.

Hopefully,

kinda!

Source

UK: New squatters handbook out now!

It’s arrived! Squatters Handbook 14.5! Available from Freedom bookshop [London] and all good squats! Your handy guide to the class war and autonomous struggle in England and Wales!
Please share far and wide..

London: Free pizza versus trespass bill

Resist Anti-Trespass (R-AT) has squatted an abandoned pizza restaurant [in central London] and will be serving free pizza all day [today 23 march] as part of an action to resist the authoritarian police bill that criminalizes trespass and protest!

Come down to Wardour St, W1F and show your support by trespassing for free pizza!
Trespass is about mutual aid, protest and survival. We will not be criminalized for existing!

Love, rage and pizza
Pizza R-AT
Source

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London: Mayor’s Office threatens illegal eviction against squatters protesting police violence

The Mayor’s Office of Policing and Crime has threatened an illegal eviction against squatters currently occupying the former Cavendish Road police station in Clapham Common. The squatters are occupying in protest against police violence and the new police crackdown bill. The bill has been delayed from progressing to committee stage in the face of widespread national outrage and protests across the country.

This morning the Advisory Service for Squatters tweeted that the Mayor’s Office was threatening to breach Section 6 of the Criminal Law Act 1977, as well as the European Convention on Human Rights. In the notice, the Mayor’s Office threatens to ‘exercise its right to self-help’ and remove the occupiers under common law. County Enforcement Group, a notorious bailiff firm, are carrying out the action.

Has this threat to breach S6 CLA 1977 and ECHR been authorised by @MOPACLdn or are they just letting cowboy bailiffs get away with shit as usual? https://t.co/KNmpqCibc4

— Advisory Service for Squatters (@ASSquattheworld) March 23, 2021

Source

London: Copshop squatted

Squatters and autonomous activists have occupied the former Clapham Common Police Station to demand the withdrawal of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill and the end of the femicide recently highlighted by the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving Met police officer.

As the closest cop shop to where Sarah was last seen, the occupation of this building holds particular importance and meaning at this time. Although the bill has been postponed, we have to keep fighting it to ensure it does not pass. And in the meantime, violence against women continues. We must seize this moment where we find ourselves UNITED in rage, unified in our fight against the ongoing global femicide and to remember people like Sarah, Blessing Olusegun and countless others and to build our fight to end violence against women.

We also seek to bring attention to Section 4 of the Bill which criminalises trespass, a racist move by this Tory government which will affect predominantly travellers and van dwellers but also squatters, protest camps and the homeless. We hope that all those who resist the expansion of police powers in the Tories Bill will also join us in resisting any amended versions of that Bill which retain this racist attack which will make a travelling way of life almost impossible.
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Bristol: Gloucester Road centre evicted

Today police in Bristol have violently evicted a squatted social centre, making some occupants homeless and subjecting everyone to risk of covid-19, all in the name of building more luxury flats on Gloucester Rd. And the pigs here very much standing on guard for the bailiffs as they try to clear a building that had been empty for years and was serving as homeless accommodation. #ACAB #ABAB

We arrived in the morning watching the gradual police build-up and joining the outstanding resistance to this illegal eviction. Some of us returned in the afternoon to show support and solidarity.16 riot vans, at least 6 area cars,and endless police. Disproportionate response.

Government: ‘There will be no evictions during the pandemic’. Meanwhile on Gloucester Rd in Bristol, dozens of cops, many in riot gear, are evicting a social centre that has been home to many.
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