Since the 1960s, squatting has been going on in the Netherlands. Since then, the housing shortage has only increased. And so it is still being squatted. You could call it a contrary tradition. Today, too, but today we make ourselves extra visible.
Why?
In opposition to the recently tabled amendment proposal for the Squatting and Vacancy Act.
Although the above mentioned law already came into force in 2010 and squatting became illegal, some politicians want to make the illegal use of housing even more illegal. The proposal is to make emergency evictions, including emergency lawsuits, the norm within a time frame of 3 days.
This seems superfluous, because at the moment, too, homeowners have sufficient resources at their disposal to be able to evacuate squatters. [Read More]
Amsterdam: Squatting goes on!
Netherlands: National day of action against the ban on squatting
Ban the squatting ban!
Since the 1960s, squatting has functioned as a mean of action to stress out a failing housing and vacancy policy: the reason why for decades a squatting ban was regarded as undesirable without any associated effective measures to prevent vacancy. Although squatting has been banned by law since 2010, vacancy and housing shortage have doubled in the past 10 years. And so people are still squatting. The VVD and the CDA do not see vacancies and housing shortages as a problem, but squatting is. At the moment, these parties are working hard for a change in the law to ensure that squatters can be evicted more quickly, without tackling the underlying problems. Because this law will put the legal position of squatters and precarious residents under severe pressure and will only further increase the historically high vacancy rates and homelessness, actions are taking place in various parts of the country today.
One-sided effectuation Squatting and Vacancy Act
Almost 10 years ago, the Squatting and Vacancy Act was passed, on the condition that not only squatting, but also vacancy had to be reduced. Whereas squatting has always been (and still is!) an important stick behind the door of pawnbrokers, from now on municipalities should play a more active role in tackling speculation on vacant property and impoverishment. Fines for structural vacancy, however, have hardly been imposed and thanks to the gigantic boost of vacancy management/property guardianship, it has only become easier for speculators to conceal vacancy under the guise of ‘occupancy through temporary renting’. [Read More]
Amsterdam: Pretoriusstraat 89hs resquatted
Today 8 september 2019, Pretoriusstraat 89 ground floor has been resquatted. Owner is the family van Zijl from Wilnis, known as infamous real estate speculators in Amsterdam. Until 2013, the building has been used by several butcheries. After, it stood empty for a few years until it was squatted in February 2016. The squatters had to leave in 2018, because the owner wanted to renovate the neglected building and convert its function to living. Since then, not much has happened, the floor is empty and stripped, draughts and rain further damage the property.
The van Zijl family is known for its speculative real estate business, which is conducted through vacancy and neglect. Harry van Zijl, has been called the “Amsterdam King of the Slums”. His son, who takes over the company with a portfolio of more than 80 properties in Amsterdam, employs the same strategy. The more neglected a building, the easier it is to obtain different permits, for example converting its function. The longer it takes, the more it pays off. The housing shortage is not a social problem, but an opportunity for enrichment. That is why many of their houses have been squatted and re-squatted over the years. [Read More]
Greece: We stand against state repression
The state and capitalism continue to target the freedom of the social base and appropriate its labour and resources. In recent years we have experienced some of the most violent attacks on this freedom through the mass impoverishment of the already oppressed and exploited. At the same time, a widespread social resistance and solidarity movement has formed. People have created a variety of self-organized spaces such as housing infrastructures, social medical centers, community kitchens, open parks and public spaces. In spite of setbacks, the movement has created a solid social ground and accumulated considerable knowledge and experience. Through squats, political groups, base unions, squares and neighbourhood assemblies we have formed communities of struggle with strong social bonds. Communities oriented towards society, with a critical eye all the same. At times, the movement has had to use violence as a means of defending and expanding free spaces against state repression, capitalist interests and fascist attacks. It is a movement that grows in diversity and vibrancy, despite the ongoing criminalisation of solidarity and mobility.
In the context of this socio-class conflict, on Monday 26/8, the state, armed with police forces, seized Exarchia and evicted four squats. Two of these squats were migrant homes—Transito and Spirou Trikoupi 17, from where the police abducted 144 migrants, uprooting them from their places of residence for a second time and isolating them in what the state calls detention centers. Evictions were also carried out in an ongoing housing and political squat in Assimaki Fotila street, and the Gare squat, where three arrests were made. [Read More]
Magdeburg (Germany): Four at a stroke, solidarity greetings to Exarchia
In the night of 4 september 2019, we squatted four houses in different city districts of Magdeburg. We want to express our anger on the brutal attacks in Exarchia where more than 140 people have been jailed in refugee camps or directly imprisoned. At the same time, we want to show our solidarity with the free and rebellious spirits of the district here and of all other resisting places.
Today, several people in Magdeburg came together to appropriate different houses temporarily – with that we are saying: We can take the rooms if we want. Exarchia lives on!
It has been pronounced long time ago, but now Kyriakos Mitsotakis, newly elected prime minister and his riot police MAT striked with full violence. His aim was and is the autonomous district Exarchia in downtown of Athens. In this district which is shaped by self-organisation and the spirit of resistance, Mitsotakis wants to “tidy up”, as it depicts a stain for the gentrification project in Athens. They want to impose a metro station in Exarchia so it subjects itself to mass tourism and real estate speculation. So far they tried to harass the inhabitants of that district through repression, controls and expulsion, now the methods have been intensified. [Read More]
Athens: MAT entered inside the steki of anarchist immigrants (Tsamadou 19) and destroyed everything
The night of 1th September, the event of solidarity gathering had taken place in the steki of anarchist immigrants (Tsamadou 19). After the event of solidarity, there was a riot against military check point of the MAT next to the steki, which molotovs burned MAT hardly; after the riot, MAT destroyed the door of steki, entered inside and started to smash everything. At the moment, the door of steki of anarchist immigrants is open and MAT are next the steki.
We have said it, the resistance is still alive and resistance will exist, even if the streets of Exarchia become red from our blood.
The state is try to terrorize the society in order to control it, this is the plan of all the state but we should not fear and we have to throw the fear in the body of the system.
Steki of anarchist immigrants (Tsamadou 19) will be still the center of radical immigrants.
Long live resistance [Read More]
Netherlands: Stop the new law against squatting!!!
Squatting is not the problem, but the solution…..!!!!
The new bill on squatting has no added value whatsoever. Since the Squatting and Vacant Property Act came into force in 2010, the squatting of homes and business premises has been reduced enormously. People who want to squat are frightened by the sanctions that are imposed if caught in the act. Owners have a large number of options to bridge any temporary vacancies by registering or by hiring anti-squat companies.
It is precisely the massive deployment of vacancy management by owners that has made squatting considerably more difficult. Owners also have a legal option to have a squatted property to their disposal again. At least, provided they have adequate concrete plans for that building. It is this legal intermediate step that makes it clear whether owners speculate on properties or not. In that sense, squatters have always had a signal function. This important function disappears with this new law.
Squatting is already complicated enough for squatters under current legislation. Practice shows that most buildings remain squatted for less than 3 or 4 months. Squatters who have been working on this for a number of years often have to give up after such a period because it is difficult to constantly have to leave under pressure and start something new. The current practice and law is therefore really no problem for owners. They usually only lose the use of their property for a short period of time. [Read More]
Athens: Demonstration on 14th of september. Solidarity will win!
[an update on the repressive campaign by the state and call for international mobilizations in solidarity with the squats and the anarchist movement in Greece]
At dawn on August 26th, strong repression forces evicted four squats in the neighborhood of Exarcheia, arrested three squatters and detained 143 refugees and immigrants. While men, women and children refugees were piled in police vans by the armed hooded men of the Special Repression Counter-Terrorist Unit, institutional fascism released its ideological propaganda through the media: a representantive of Greek Police compared the repression forces to a “vaccum” of new technology that will wipe out from Exarcheia “the disturbing dust”, the refugees and immigrants, and afterwards the real “trash”, the anarchists, announcing the continuation of the repressive operation and their declared target.
The recent police invasions are a first manifestation of the repressive campaign, announced by state officials, against the anarchist movement, the squats, the self-organized structures of housing immigrants and refugees, the world of solidarity, social and class resistance in general. A repressive campaign that consists the spearhead of the state and capitalism’s attack on the plebeians of society, aiming to terrorize them and neutralize resistance, in order to proceed uninterruptedly to the onslaught of state and capitalist brutality. The elections of July 7th marked the continuation of the imposition of suffocating living conditions for the workers and the unemployed, the imprisonment of immigrants and refugees in concentration camps and the deaths in the borders, the intensification of the looting of social wealth and nature, the attempt to establish the state of emergency. The government of New Democracy is building on the attempted neutralization of social and class struggles and the tens of repression attacks against squats during the administration of Syriza, promising to crush the people of the struggle – to all those that have stood and are still standing against the plans of the authority. [Read More]
Berlin: Wagenplatz DieselA and Rummelsburger Bucht faces eviction!
Since May 25th we squatted the area at Hauptstraße 2-3 in Rummelsburger Bucht. Extensive infrastructure was built and installed for our living space as well as for the public and communal area WIDER-STRAND. There are many solidarity events at WIDER-STRAND, connecting with our neighbours and other projects in Berlin.
We do not want to live on the sideways of the streets anymore. The wagenplatz DieselA needs a safe place for living. Besides that we want to make a spotlight on the disgusting way how the plan for the Rummelsburger Bucht was agreed on.
Hundreds of people will loose their living space and/or place for activities and free time. The Coral World is planned to be build here for 500 000 visitors a year as a tourist attraction, the interest is not to keep alternative living spaces. The City of the Rich expands!
For the last months we were ignored by police, politicians and the owners, now the situation is getting more acute. They brought a lot of fences to secure and control the future construction site that will be enormous. Some days ago we heard the rumor that the whole Bucht should be evicted by 2nd September 2019. [Read More]
Utrecht: Protest action against new anti squat law
Today, there was an attempt to resquat the Watertoren on the Amsterdamsestraatweg in Utrecht. This water tower has been squatted many times already. Today, squatters unfortunately failed. The water tower, a designated national monument, has not been in use since 1986. The real estate developer who bought it in 2014, has not succeeded yet in developing anything. At the same time, alternative uses are not tolerated and eviction for emptiness has been the systematic answer. This while the monumental building is falling into disrepair.
Today’s squatting action was intended as a protest against the plan of the CDA and VVD to tighten up the law against squatting. The aim of the 2010 law was to tackle both squatting and vacancy. In recent years, squatters have been the main target of prosecution, while only a few cities have been acting against emptiness. The new proposal gives squatters hardly any time and space to defend themselves. The right of residence of people who take matters into their own hands, is so further eroded. [Read More]
Athens: Statement from Spirou Trikoupi 17
The last weeks, after the elections, we are witnessing the development of a more totalitarian and far right state, that threatens the existence of our self-organized and free structures, as well as the life of the most poor and oppressed parts of this society. The new government started from the very first day showing its real face by taking control of the medias, disestablishing the ministry of migration and transferring its jurisdiction to the ministry of public order, under the authority of the police. They continued with massive arrests of people without “legal” papers, they strengthened the borders controls, pushing back to Turkey “illegally” people, and they banned the access of refugees and migrants to the national health system, by not providing them the social insurance number that it is needed. This also have immediate consequences to the access of the children to the education system, that without vaccines they are not allowed to attend the school. One other dimension of the same policy concerned Exarcheia and all the structures of this neighborhood that they are against this rotten, hierarchical and corrupted system. Their plan is to gentrify and take control of the only place in Athens that still resists. Immediately they attacked two refugees’ squats, Notara 26 and Hotel Oneiro, trying to cut down the water and the electricity forcing hundreds of people being scared for their lives and freedom.
[Read More]
Hambach Forest: Skillsharing camp in September
The second Skillsharing Camp of this year will take place from September 15th to 25th.
Details will follow soon.
We, the orga team, are currently very understaffed. If you are currently in the forest and / or in the meadow and you can imagine helping, then write to skillsharing [dot] hambacherforst [at] riseup [dot] net. No prior knowledge required 😉
We still don’t have a kitchen crew. If you happen to be a culinary collective that can imagine cooking in the period then write as well.
Also artists, speakers and people who are already in demand can write. More information will follow soon 🙂
Radar Online Agenda
