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]
Angers: eviction of the Grande Ourse and nazi attack, the city where it is good to live
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]
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]
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]
Poland: Nora 219Ⓐ Manifesto
We are a family group of Wolfens, that is a grassroot movement for the protection of the Carpathian Forest. We operate as an intersectional collective. We make decisions by consensus. We believe that we can function as we would like the world to function: without hierarchy, human domination over other beings, patriarchy, queerphobia and fascism. With radical empathy and care.
We do not agree to the devastation of wildlife and the exploitation of valuable forests as wood inventories. Bieszczady forests are an extremely complex, sensitive ecosystem that performs many very important functions. These forests are soil and water-protective, therefore the amount of water in the country depends on their condition. This is where the most rain and snow falls. Mountain streams feed rivers and the excess water is stored by the forest. Forests, especially the old, natural ones, play a key role in climate protection.
If they continue to be massively cut, the soil crushed with heavy equipment, and the deep ruts of skid roads continue to run a sea of mud into mountain streams, we have no chance in the fight against drought in the country, floods, not to mention the climate disaster. Meanwhile, the State Forests institution consistently implement a plan to destroy forests in areas that could be included in national parks or where reserves are designed, so as to diminish their natural value, so that there are no longer grounds for protecting them.
We believe that it is our moral duty to fight to defend our common good, and in the face of planned logging in one of the most valuable areas of mountain forests in Poland, we feel that the only way left is to block them directly. In order for us to succeed, we need financial support to cover logistics costs, purchase materials for building houses, climbing equipment, and provide legal support.
[Read More]
Saint Nazaire (France): Another eviction
After having evicted us from the various places where we tried to find shelter, they even came to evict us from a parking lot, no negotiations possible, no additional time. The places must be free as soon as possible.
Collectif Geronimo
Ile-Saint-Denis (France): The Pavillon Solidaire, solidarity with refugees
Solidarity, not just a word
What do you see when you take a walk around L’Ile Saint Denis – along the river banks, under the bridges, through the squares, the park? Everywhere desperate people hiding in tents, in flimsy constructions of plastic and wood, in the bushes, in any hole they can find. Hiding from the freezing cold, and hiding from the police with their batons, dogs and choking gas.
Over the weeks before the occupation we checked inside the Pavillon Solidaire several times, we wanted to be completely sure no one was using it. What did we find? The doors left open, rubbish piled up, mould growing everywhere, building work unfinished, foul stench of food left to rot, the garden clogged up with leaves, the building literally rotting.
These days it’s a cliché to say we’re living in scenes from a zombie movie. But that’s just what it seemed like, an abandoned house whose inhabitants have fled the apocalypse. A house that could provide a shelter from the cold and fear outside – at least for a few people, at least for a little while. [Read More]
Saint Nazaire (France): Update from Collectif Geronimo
A quick and very fresh hello straight from the camp, temperatures have dropped below -4C, but we are all alive. Thanks to the help of several volunteers from associations, we were able to survive this night.
A few people came to bring us a little human warmth, coffee and pastries.
Thank you for your support!
Current location: Landscaped park, Saint Nazaire.
Edit: Small morning visit of the municipal police, we keep you informed of the rest of the events!
Collectif Geronimo
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