Strasbourg: La Pigeonne, feminist and queer squat

Why are we squatting?

We, women and queer people, feminists, precarious, exiled and marginalised on several levels, are occupying a building in Strasbourg that has been abandoned for several years. Since February 27th 2020, La Pigeonne has become a squat for housing and organization in a selected mix (without cisgender men*).
As women and queers, we are targets of physical, sexual, economic, social and administrative violence. We suffer more poverty and precariousness. We claim our unconditional right to have a roof over our heads. We find it aberrant to be on the street, to lack care or food while the wealthy one are wasting and continue to enrich themselves. Precariousness has never been a choice for anyone. It is the result of a political, organized and reaffirmed will of the dominant to maintain an exploitable class. Neither the institutions nor the bosses want our autonomy. On the contrary, they participate daily in our precariousness.
Therefore, our priorities are to protect ourselves, to build solidarity among ourselves, to denounce together a patriarchal society and an economic system that sacrifices the most vulnerable. For a social transformation and the emancipation of all women and queer people, we favour initiatives made by us and for us.
In the face of the incompetence of the state, the violence of its institutions, and its sexist, queerphobic and racist police repression that is increasingly violent and systematic, we organize ourselves. We are occupying the space we are being denied. [Read More]

Lyon: Trial of the Feyzin squat, call for support

Faced with the threats of evictions that are likely to follow one another at the end of the winter truce, let’s organize solidarity!
Squats and other informal housing are among the places most exposed to the risks linked to the health crisis. While during the confinement, the State and the Metropolis have hardly brought any help in these already precarious housing, the eviction procedures are starting again, and threaten to put on the street more than a thousand people in Lyon as soon as the winter truce ends (July 10).
On June 16, the former Georges Brassens school in Feyzin, now owned by Total, went on trial. Home to about 70 people, the school has been renovated and made liveable, and is now a place where its residents can live. Let’s come and support them in the face of threats of eviction to demand decent housing for all and to denounce the repressive and discriminatory policies of this government.
Meet on Tuesday 16 June at 9am in front of the court of first instance of Villeurbanne at 3 Rue Docteur Fleury Pierre Papillon for a breakfast of support. [Read More]

Berlin: Attack the city of the rich. Defend the projects

The gentrification in Berlin continues incessantly, and with it displacement. Not only people but also spaces are affected: Spaces of the radical movement, open spaces, safer spaces for people affected by discrimination, non-commercial spaces, spaces of subculture, of political networking and spaces where people try to live concrete utopias.

One struggle – one fight
In recent years, spaces such as the Liebig14 house project, the youth centre Drugstore , the community space Friedel54, the wagon places DieselA & Sabot Garden, the O-Platz occupation and the occupied school in Ohlauer Straße have already disappeared.
But it does not stop there. Many other spaces are currently under threat. The youth centre Potse, the house project Liebig34 and the bar collective Syndikat & Meuterei expect an eviction before the end of the year. Other spaces such as the house project Rigaer94, the house project Köpi137, the community house Lause10/11 or the community garden Prachttomate face a similar threat in the near future.

No spaces – no movement
All of these are spaces that live and fight for a different Berlin: a Berlin in which we know our neighbours, in which we create our houses and our neighbourhood together and jointly determine how public space is used. A Berlin where there is room for self-chosen living concepts. A Berlin in which we can try out alternatives to the exploitative and oppressive relations of wage labour, care work, educational system and on the basis of rent and ownership. [Read More]

Rotterdam: Temporary new place of DHZ

Since March we have been going through a lot, globally and also in our workshop.

After a fire at our neighbour we had to close the workshop temporarily. It then turned out to be a serious damage to the building and we were evicted from our lovely workshop on Burgemeester Roosstraat where we stayed almost 6 years. It is very sad for us all but we would like to keep our activities going on.
[Read More]

Uppsala: Imminent eviction of Försvara Blodstensskogen

The occupation of the forest aim to stop the clear cut of a centenary forest. Besqab company and Uppsala commune have plan to build luxury apartment.

The gentrification of Uppsala has been an ongoing process over many years. 2013 saw a luxury renovation of Rikshem’s housing in Gränby, 2016 saw the demolition of the community center (sw. allaktivitetshuset, colloquially known as Allis) on Kungsgatan for a luxury housing development project by Magnolia Bostad. The end of 2020 require the youth center (Ungdomens hus) to move for the space it currently occupies can be used for more lucrative endeavors. These mentioned are only a few examples of gentrification and urbanization that results in increased rent and degradation of living standards. However, the gentrification monster is still hungry and has its sights set on the forest. Blodstensskogen along with other various surrounding nature areas are on the menu as the appetizer, Norra Lunsen as a possible main course, and we can only imagine what will be served as dessert.
Eriksberg is currently in the most acute danger, as the company Besqab plans to begin its housing development project of Blodstensskogen. The company, along with the municipality, believe that something more important than biodiversity is luxury housing (four 8-story apartment buildings and five 4-story apartment buildings) along with a shopping center where customers can consume relentlessly. [Read More]

Wassenaar: Ivicke Sales Seizure, First Step To Expropriation?

The municipality of Wassenaar is going to court to annul the recent sales of Ivicke by the owner, Ronnie van de Putte, to two of his newly-established companies.

Van de Putte is currently subject to an administrative order from the municipality of Wassenaar to carry out restoration works on Ivicke by July 20. Otherwise, the municipality intends to carry out the work itself and send him the bill.

Thing is though, this bill could quickly add up. And van de Putte isn’t known for paying his debts.

Ivicke’s restoration costs are thought to be around 500,000 euros but this can (and probably will) shoot up once the works begin. Especially since there has not yet been a full architectural assessment.

Kees Wassenaar, the city’s alderman for spatial planning, said the dispute over Ivicke has already cost Wassenaar hundreds of thousands of euros. A spokesperson for the municipality did not want to give an exact overall figure, but the city has incurred around 40,000 in legal costs alone.

These spiraling costs are what led the municipality of Wassenaar to ask the province of Zuid-Holland for help. In response, Zuid-Holland pledged a maximum of 500,000 euros from its monument restoration fund for 2020. We stand against this abuse of public funds for a project that does not meet the criteria set by Zuid-Holland’s own monument restoration policy, where there is no guarantee the money could be recouped, and which does not guard against a new cycle of neglect and decay. [Read More]

Wassenaar: Report on Ivicke’s ‘Emergency Repairs’

In January, following the court ruling stating that the owner must comply with the municipality’s order to carry out emergency repairs, a contractor began the works on Ivicke.

At the request of members of two monument protection organisations, we sent a report (below) to the municipality, with details about how the repairs were carried out. We didn’t receive a response. Instead, municipal officials announced they would inspect the building. We agreed to this and showed the inspectors and the contractor around, pointing out the issues we’d already raised in the letter. The officials barely engaged with us, and merely went around with a clipboard and ticked off boxes. The conclusion of the municipality was that the owner fulfilled the obligation to do emergency repairs. Yay! Win-win for the municipality, who successfully enforced their administrative order, and for the owner, who can keep them off his back (for now). [Read More]

Amsterdam: ADM community has to pack again!

A first update from the Slibvelden crew itself was made public on May 24th 2020. One big part of the former ADM crew relocated at the Slibvelden on Buikslotermeerdijk 95 in Amsterdam Noord. The following statement is published on Indymedia on June 4th by Stichting ADM Leeft, with Hay Schoolmeesters (also Urban Resort, Free Spaces Accord), holding the pen:

ADM community has to pack again!

Almost a year and a half ago, the ADM site was evicted inappropriately. Under the supervision of the municipality, all that was from and dear to the more than 125 residents was completely destroyed by the owner of the site. Part of the close-knit community ended up on the Sludge Fields of the former Water Purification in Amsterdam North. Now this group is forced to relocate on November 1 this year, without any necessity.

At the end of 2018, a motion was passed by the Amsterdam city council, which instructed the college to work with the ADM community to find a definitive location where the community could continue their way of living and livelihood after the sludge fields. The sludge fields were made available to the ADM community for 2 years by means of a tolerance decision. In a recent meeting with the Municipality Noord, it turned out that, despite the motion and despite the fact that no other location is in the picture, the Municipality nevertheless wants to remove the ADM community from the site! [Read More]

Lausanne: Occupation of a building to accommodate homeless people

On Friday May 29th at the end of the day, during the Critical Mass, we occupied the Place Bel-Air 4 building in downtown Lausanne with the aim of creating a place of welcome for people in need of housing, but also a place of solidarity, convergence of struggles, culture and sharing. The Municipality gave the order to evict and the building was emptied a few hours later by the police, but this event will be remembered and reminds us that autonomous, supportive and resistant places are more than ever necessary.

With the end of the lock down, Lausanne has reduced the number of housing units for the homeless. Friday’s occupation was made in response to the Sleep-In Association’s Appeal 212, which asked to do everything possible to ensure that the 212 beds that were provided during the coronavirus period would be maintained all year round, thus meeting the real needs of homeless people in the Lausanne region. The covid-19 pandemic has shown that many emergency measures can be put in place quickly and that immense financial resources can be found to support the economy and save multinationals. Why don’t we see a similar mobilization for climate emergency and social justice? [Read More]

Berlin: Liebig34 invites to her own court case on Dorfplatz. Chaos instead of an action for eviction!

On 3 June ’20, the eviction of Liebig34 is to be heard in the high-security hall of the Tiergarten court. It is assumed that after two failed attempts, the verdict will be pronounced after all, making the eviction of the anarcha-queer feminist house project more likely. However, the collective does not want to accept this and will continue to resist. Because: The houses, those who need them!
In the past, there have been many attempts to condemn and criminalise our protest against the eviction of the threatened projects in court. They try to keep us small with repression and surveillance. We see this, for example, in the new classification of the Liebig34 collective as “left-wing extremist” by the constitutional dirt and the aggressive and provocative behaviour of the BPE cops day in, day out in the danger zones of this city.
Courts constantly decide FOR the winners AGAINST the marginalized and oppressed in this patriarchal, racist and capitalist system. We have no confidence in this unjust state, which protects fascist perpetrators and acts and decides according to the interests of capital. We stand against this system and never give in.
That is why we create our real version of the verdict and shit on eviction suits and do NOT go to Moabit to the court. We decide against an eviction and that alone counts.
Come on 03 June from 9:00 on the Dorfplatz in front of Liebigstraße34. First there will be spectacles, then brunch.
Also join the actions on June 2nd and show your solidarity with the projects threatened by eviction: decentralized and chaotic! [Read More]

Berlin: Let’s take the struggle into our hands again

A short call for the reopening of our structures.

Now that the arteries of the capitalist system are again pulsating in the rhythm of production and consumption, we find the re-opening of Kadterschmiede and other common spaces of the projects as important as mentioned in our previous text. [1]
During the “unofficial” lockdown people where pushed to continue going to work or companies found the alternative solution of home office to prevent a breakdown. For almost a month now the industry of education is open again. At the same time the public spaces are under constant attack to prevent political and social interactions.

In times when it’s mostly fascists who reclaim the public spheres and the cops try to control every corner of the city, our spaces cannot be kept closed any longer. [Read More]

Athens: Themistokleus refugee squat evicted

Athens. Greece. Statement by Notara 26 on yesterday’s eviction of the Themistokleus refugee squat.

Today (May 18, 2020) at dawn, the Greek state whose racism can not be bent neither by pandemics, nor by meteorites possibly, went ahead with the eviction of the refugee housing squat of Themistokleus street.
Dozens of people, mostly women refugees with children, lost their home again as well as the minimal protection they had found. They were moved on police buses to Petrou Rallli and then they were dumped in the middle of nowhere to wander the streets homeless and fatigued, with no place to go to.
At the moment they have gathered at Exarchia square with no access to food and housing. Amongst them many babies and children.
We are under no illusion. We don’t expect any kind of salvation from the guard-dogs and their superiors who have raised inhumanity and repression to the ultimate dogma.
Only solidarity can give hope back to those who have been deprived of it.
We call all the friends of Notara26 refugee – immigrant housing squat to support these people in the same way they have been supporting our community all those years.

“IN ORDER TO TURN THE REFUGEES’ JOURNEY TOWARDS SURVIVAL INTO MANKIND’S JOURNEY TOWARDS FREEDOM”

Notara 26, May 18, 2020

Via EnoughisEnough, originally published by Notara 26 Facebook page