Wassenaar: Bats at Ivicke

Potential Roost Destroyed And Building In Danger After Municipality Of Wassenaar Ignores Directive To Stop All Works.
The municipality of Wassenaar removed Ivicke’s gutter despite an Omgevingsdienst Zuid-Holland directive to stop all works on the building immediately due to the suspected presence of bats. The removal of the gutter also did not accord with the municipality’s own work plan, meaning Ivicke is now at serious risk of water damage.

On Tuesday 24 November, Omgevingsdienst (OD) Zuid-Holland ordered the municipality of Wassenaar to stop the works on Ivicke because of the strong possibility of bats roosting in and around the building. The municipality hasn’t conducted any assessment on this, or sought permits for the work in general, even though this is precisely why the owner, Ronnie van de Putte, was prevented from carrying out works on the building several months ago. The workers left the site early on Tuesday 24 and weren’t here on Wednesday 25, pending the results of the OD’s investigation.

(At this stage of the municipality’s works (4 weeks in), there’s scaffolding all around the building, more or less at the height of the now-removed gutter, but it’s not yet fully erect. Before the works stopped, the scaffolding was due to be completed by November 30, according to the plan submitted to us by the architect of the project.) [Read More]

Villeurbanne: the Collectif Solidarités Cusset opens a squat in the rue de l’Egalité

We, Collectif Solidarités Cusset, have occupied a vacant building at 4-6 rue de l’Egalité in Villeurbanne since Wednesday 18 November. We are a neighborhood collective bringing together residents of Cusset. Since the first lockdown, we have decided to organize ourselves collectively in the face of the health and social situation in order to propose a concrete and popular solidarity with the most precarious: students, unemployed, undocumented workers, workers, large families, retired people…
For 4 months, we tried to contribute to the food and health emergency by distributing food and hygiene products in the form of a free market, with the support of several associations in town. Over these 4 months, twice a week, we held these distributions, and it is more than 80 families and isolated people that we helped.

Strengthened by this experience and the multiple links that we have built, we re-mobilized at the beginning of this second lockdown, notably through the organization of marauds. These allowed us to see that our means were not equal to the great precariousness in which too many people found themselves, especially those who had no housing. [Read More]

Rome: Nuovo Cinema Palazzo evicted

Nuovo Cinema Palazzo was evicted today (Wednesday) in San Lorenzo, Rome. It had been squatted for a decade and was a well-loved community resource. The social centre called for action on the streets and there was a large demo in the evening (three arrests reported). Mayor of Rome Virginia Raggi (Five Star) said the eviction was an outrage and she herself liked to go there, calling for an immediate meeting to resolve the issue and get the squat re-opened. Also, in better news, the headquarters of neo-Nazis Forza Nuova was also evicted and Raggi took care to say there was nothing at all similar between the two places.

Nuovo Cinema Palazzo released this statement (machine translated) in answer to Raggi’s support:
[Read More]

Paris: occupation of the Place de la République, repression and manhunt

The night of the tents: the worst happened. Horror and outrage, the statue of the Republic was petrifiedExtracts from the joint press release

The worst is not the images, it is the night that has once again swallowed the migrants outside. The worst is that the 400 migrants present, at 7pm, Place de la République, will sleep outside again tonight, far away in Clichy, far away in Saint-Denis, hidden under the bridges of the canals or elsewhere, invisible. The worst thing is that again, we will not see them fall asleep wounded in the cold.

No, the appalling thing did not happen when the police took the migrants out, at 8 pm, of the tents that the association Utopia 56 had set up on the Place de la République (20,000 euros of budget according to the association). The police began to throw away several hundred tents purchased this weekend to put them in a safe place. The abandoned bodies of the migrants, taken out by force, the light fabrics flying through the air from hand to hand in police hands, the soon-to-be-torn canvases, the tired faces of all of them… We were only there at the beginning. [Read More]

Saint-Denis: new evacuation of camp, police violence against migrants

New evacuation of a migrant camp in Saint-Denis. Another communication operation on the shoulders of migrants!

This morning, Tuesday November 17 at dawn, hundreds of migrants were evacuated from the camp near the Stade de France. Prefect Lallement was present on the spot and willingly answered the microphones of the media, who had obviously been warned in advance of the evacuation.
Between 65 and 70 such evacuations have taken place in recent years in the Île-de-France region. The State’s solution is to evict people without any real care. It is a policy of “burying one’s head in the sand”. When it becomes too visible they evacuate. A few days or weeks later a new camp is formed until… the next evacuation and so on. [Read More]

Santurtzi: Demonstration, create, support and defend squatting

With this short text, we would like to invite you to the demonstration that will take place on November 28th at 12:30 from the Kultur Etxea de Mamariga in Santurtzi.

Because of the media campaign against squatting that is being carried out from the disinformation media, the anti-occupation neighborhood mobilizations with racist and classist tendencies that force evictions and the the aggressive actions that threaten us and come from the city council. From Mamarigako Kultur Etxea, Mamarigako Gaztetxea, La Kelo Gaztexea and people in solidarity; we have seen that it is essential to organize ourselves to give a forceful response to this situation that affects all the squatting movement.

We want to open this initiative that arises from the squatted spaces of Santurtzi to the rest of the collectives and networks. We would like to make you participate by proposing to use this call to make visible in your environment the different local problems and that November 28 under the flag of the squatting be a meeting point to claim our struggle and the defense of our spaces. [Read More]

Bristol: urgent call for support to resist site eviction

Freedom received the following call-out from the people living in the Picton Lane site in Bristol. If you are able, support them tomorrow, 9th November, in resisting illegal eviction. Pass it on.
We are a group of travellers & friends currently residing on a site in Picton Lane, Montpelier, Bristol, in caravans. Just one day into the second lockdown, we were given a notice to leave by tomorrow morning, 7am by Andrew Wilson & Co bailiffs. The notice was NOT a court order and even included a spelling mistake.
The owner of the land we are on has been applying for permission to build apartment & offices there for years, with applications going back to 2017. We are sure these would not be affordable flats and locals oppose them. All of these applications have been rejected. The land has been staying empty for years, excluding another group of vehicle dwellers who were evicted about 18 months ago.
The current government lockdown guidelines state that evictions mustn’t happen unless it is a case of “emergency”. We don’t think this situation is an emergency at all. No planning permission has been accepted and we have just started a second lockdown. Criminal cases fall under “emergency” in these guidelines, however, this is a civil matter.
We seek support on the day, 7am and earlier, as we expect the bailiffs to be aggressive. We feel we must resist and that our demands should be met: 1. To have contact with the owner 2. To be allowed to remain until the end of lockdown and 3. If an eviction must happen, we want it to be done via proper means aka via a court order. [Read More]

Amsterdam: Het Schip, Queer Feminist Squat opened

About two weeks ago a house in de Kinkerbuurt was re-squatted. The building was left empty for over a year after the previous occupiers were asked to leave, as supposedly it was to be demolished and replaced with four luxury apartments. The resquatting was done silently and after a few days the cops recognised the occupiers domestic peace. (It’s the 3rd time within 5 years Jan Hanzenstraat 115 is squatted).

A message from the occupiers:
We are against the state, patriarchy, police violence, capitalism and all forms of hierarchy and oppression. We will defend ourselves, and our right to exist and live the way we want. Gentrification is a direct attack on our communities, our livelihood and our freedom to be in the city. We are queer, feminist, antifascist and we are tired of this shit. Our free spaces are under attack everywhere and we will not stand by quietly watching their destruction. The time to occupy, resist and strike is now. The pandemic has had a disproportionately negative effect on working class people, womxn, Queer and BAME folks and other marginalised groups. We will not let ourselves be the collateral damage of this crisis. We take care of us. We stand in solidarity with womxn and queer people everywhere, fighting capitalism and patriarchy. Solidarity to our neighbours from Liebig 34. Our movement is international, it cannot be evicted by the state or contained within national borders. [Read More]

Nantes: New squat on rue Babonneau. You can’t lockdown people outside!

Every evening during the meal distributions the volunteers of l’Autre Cantine (the Other Canteen) meet single men, families with babies and children who have no accommodation. They are out in the cold, often in the rain with wet clothes and wet mattresses. In September they even saw their belongings being thrown in the garbage by the municipal police. They ask us where to sleep and if the state will shelter them.
Since last March we have been in a sanitary crisis due to Covid-19 and have been locked again for 4 days. But them, how can they lock them outside? Why don’t the State and the town hall plan anything? Neither masks, nor shelter, it is once again the most precarious who are voluntarily forgotten.
It is inconceivable for us to see a hundred people on the street, it is a heartbreak to which no one can remain insensitive. This is why we support the new occupation of an empty building, 2 Rue Babonneau!
L’Autre Cantine promises material aid (clothing, mattresses, blankets, food) to the building’s occupants until the state takes over. [Read More]

Sabadell: 7 years later, trial against Can Piella postponed

Hello friends,

We want to inform you that next Wednesday, November 4th, we were going to be judged. Five days ago, our trial was postponed, supposedly because of the Covid issue.
As you know, Can Piella has been a community and social project that was developed during three and a half years in the farmhouse Can Piella, near La Llagosta, Vallès Oriental (Can Piella was evicted on May 15, 2013) . A community that was growing in participation and support, and carrying out the rehabilitation tasks that were necessary and, little by little, was developing a social project and economic self-management. Coexistence and social transformation have been two fundamental and closely related lines of work. [Read More]

Wassenaar: Municipality Wants To Ivickt Us Without A Court Hearing Or A Plan

The mayor and executive board (B&W) of Wassenaar rejected our request to suspend our eviction from Ivicke until at least six weeks after a court has ruled on the case.

After almost two and a half years of our residency at Ivicke during which we have cooperated to ensure the municipality can start essential repairs to the building, the B&W demands we leave without exercising our right to represent our interests in front of a judge, nor with a plan in place for Ivicke’s future use. The B&W says a postponement would neither serve the interests of the owner or the public, though it offers no explanation behind this assertion nor an opinion on our interests as Ivicke’s current residents.

Let’s be clear. The B&W’s eviction order has nothing to do with Ivicke’s repair works. At least, legally speaking. The municipality’s contractors are currently preparing the terrain. Our presence here doesn’t prevent the works from happening. [Read More]

Lyon: evacuation of Collège Maurice Scève

Press release following the evacuation of the Collège sans frontières Maurice Scève by the collective support migrants Lyon Croix-Rousse, October 28, 2020.

The evacuation of the Collège sans frontières Maurice Scève on October 27, 2020 went off without a clash with the police, which is appreciable after the violent intrusion on October 6. We regret that, for what could only have been a move, such a police deployment was necessary (preventing in particular the supporters from being on the premises), stigmatizing these young migrants as potentially dangerous, whereas they are rather endangered by the lack of State support, but we note that all the actors on the spot did their utmost to ensure that the operation was carried out in good conditions.

The collective would like to thank the elected municipal and metropolitan officials and the mediators who came to the site despite the early hour of the morning, showing their commitment to ensure that everything went as smoothly as possible.

The collective and the inhabitants also thank all the neighbors who came in large numbers to show their unfailing support and their vigilance during the day, and who, since the opening of the place, have been able to see in these young people something other than the image that some try to convey about them, and have been able to integrate them with benevolence. [Read More]