Liège, Belgium: La Chartreuse – a new ZAD

On 27 March, upon the threat of the concreting over of the Chartreuse Park in Lièg, local residents and activists occupied the area and built barricades to protect the green space from the Matexi real estate developer. This is quick look back at the first two weeks of the occupation and the previous struggle against the development plans.

The Chartreuse is a green wetland in the heart of Liège. The site is protected because it has an important biodiversity (and also protected buildings). Until the early 1980s, it was occupied by a military barracks, with an old fort and other old buildings.
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London: Autonomous Winter Shelter evicted

The Autonomous Winter Shelter [previously on S!N] was evicted April 7.

Amsterdam: Hotel Mokum evicted

Hotel Marnix, squatted during ADEV as Hotel Mokum has been evicted on November 27.
EnoughisEnough has a report in English.

Glasgow: Baile Hoose is no more

Baile Hoose was given up today (30/11), long live Baile Hoose! Here’s some updates:

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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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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.
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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.

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.
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Poland: New forest occupation

At the beginning of the Carpathians, where the area is still only hilly and where wolves, bears and lynxes live freely, wood is being cut because a piece of virgin forest was not classified as a national park. It planned to become one, in the fifties. Now it is not even nature reserve. This year it is planned to take 30% of the trees from the forest, all the big ones that are not declared as natural monuments. The job of cutting tree is apparently not even profitable: the two local forest management companies have received more than ~30 million euros in the last 8 years because of deficit. 3 times more than the 23 national parks of Poland.
A big part of the forest has never been attacked: it is on the slope and before, it was too difficult to go there with machines. In other words, it is a virgin forest located right next to a national park. If roads are built now to get to the wood, it is not only bad for the groundwater (the water then flows down the roads and is no longer “caught” in the forest), but also for the bears, which have build their sleeping places at least 2 km away from the roads. Many endangered species of lichen and moss live there, as well as protected woodpeckers and owls.
So on January 3, activists moved in to block the access road. With two skypods, the Wilczyce (female wolves) protect the forest on site, because petitions and blockades of the forest management company were not enough. Everyone is invited to join the protest.

The occupation is called Nora 219Ⓐ. Nora is the polish word for wolf’s burrow and 219a is the number the forest management compagny gave the piece of forest.

Website: nora219a.blackblogs.org
Twitter: @nora219a
Instagram: kolektyw.wilczyce
Email: wilczyce [at] riseup [dot] net

If you send us an email, we can help you to find public transport, because their websites can be complicated.
The exact location of the occupation is 49.12642° N, 22.71411° E, two kilometers straight on the way from the Bison Park Pokazowa zagroda żubrów w Mucznem.

Via Hambach Forest

Posting on mastodon

EN will now be autoposting news on mastodon (the opensource alternative to twitter) at kolektiva.social. FR is already there at mamot.fr. Squat the world!

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Switzerland: Call to support the ZAD de la Colline

In Switzerland, a few kilometers from Lausanne, the multinational cement company LaFargeHolcim seeks to expand the exploitation of the limestone quarry which consumes and attacks the Mormont hill. The quarry’s expansion threatens to engulf the hill’s protected forest, its unique biodiversity, its history and the cultivated lands which it is home to. The company is no stranger to such aggressions. Its involvement in over 120 cases of environmental and human rights violations is currently documented in 34 countries.

The Birette plateau is an area of precious biodiversity. It hosts an atypical flora comprising several protected species, including rare species of orchids. It is also of crucial archeological and historical importance. Furthermore, the extracted limestone participates in the colossal CO2 emissions produced by LaFarge Holcim and the cement sector, which is responsible for 12% of the global CO2 emissions. Holcim Switzerland is the company producing the most CO2 territorial emissions in the country.

Since the legal recourses submitted were unable to guarantee the termination of the project, the occupants of the Zone à Défendre (ZAD) de la Colline decided to block it in order to defend the hill’s biodiversity, local farming, cultural patrimony and, more broadly, the climate against the concrete industry. Through their physical occupation of the site, they oppose corporate land-grabbing, the rampant exploitation of resources whose transformation and usage is detrimental to the environment, health and human rights. Additionally, this ZAD seeks to understand and combat the socially and environmentally destructive system of which the company’s extractive project is a part.

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US: Over 40 Units At Port Of Tacoma Travelodge Occupied To Provide Emergency Housing

Tacoma Housing Now reports on an ongoing housing occupation that so far has housed over 40 people for over 4 days at the Port of Tacoma Travelodge. This situation is unfolding, so follow them on social media for updates.

We’re on day 4 of the hotel occupation and settling in for night 4! Negotiations with the hotel owner, city, and county start tomorrow, but we have 50-70 people ready to defend if needed. Housing activists from Tacoma Housing Now, Seattle (the Yellow House), and Olympia have coalesced into a broad Puget Sound coalition that will support housing actions in each other’s cities. Most of our medics on-site are veterans of the recent far-Right battles in Olympia that saw two antifascist protestors shot. We’re also in a chat with housing organizers from Philly, Ashland OR, Medford OR, El Sereno CA, and Los Angeles trading tactics and media tips — the national movement is growing.

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