UK: Advisory Service for Squatters is 40!

We’re not sure how it happened but it did, and there seems to still be need for ASS, or something like it.

As part of our celebrations, we are planning a day of reminiscing, planning and partying, on the 12th September. Not a particularly momentous date as far as we know – the decision to start was around February and the actual opening was in October.
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London: Sweets Way Resists, you win some, you lose some

Our community house is now facing imminent eviction, we shut down Barnet Homes for 2 hours, a judge told Barnet Council that they can’t use high court bailiffs against Mostafa, and we were told that ‘no county court bailiffs will touch Sweets Way with a barge pole’!

COMMUNITY HOUSE FACING EVICTION
Thursday began with an early start, prepping for and heading to the courts in Finchley Central in the rain. Our five-month old community occupation was up against a possession order. We knew there was precious little legal defence for our presence in the house, since most judges don’t seem as impressed as us that we have used our occupation to reinforce a powerful community in the face of deliberate attempts to destroy it, but we had to give it a go. [Read More]

London: Thursday, two key ways to defend Sweets Way

We’re fighting in court for our community house at 9am, then doing a lunchtime protest at Barnet Homes to demand decent accommodation for Mostafa and the last family left on Sweets Way. CAN YOU JOIN US?

KEY INFORMATION FOR THURSDAY, AUGUST 27:

Sweets Way Resists courtroom solidarity
9am – 12pm
St Marys Court
Regents Park Road, N3
Near Finchley Central tube (Northern Line) [Read More]

Call out for an International Week for Anarchist Prisoners

In summer 2013 members of several ABC groups discussed the necessity of introducing an International Day for Anarchist Prisoners. Given there are already established dates for Political Prisoners Rights Day or Prison Justice Day, we found it important to emphasise the stories of our comrades as well. Many imprisoned anarchists will never be acknowledged as ‘political prisoners’ by formal human-rights organisations, because their sense of social justice is strictly limited to the capitalist laws which are designed to defend the State and prevent any real social change. At the same time, even within our individual communities, we know so little about the repression that exists in other countries, to say nothing of the names and cases involving many of our incarcerated comrades.
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Paris: Against states and their borders

This text on the wave of sans-papiers occupations in Paris tells important lessons for those involved in migrant struggles on the strategies used by liberal democratic states to contain them. If we anticipate these moves, how can we pre-empt them? And what strategic targets are based near you?

Original French text in Lucioles #23 with the title ‘Against states and their borders: revolution’; roughly translated by Rabble.
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CZ: The situation of our comrades in prison

English info about the Fenix case in Czech Republic originally posted on 23/06/2015, updated 21/07/2015, still current

Non-vegan diet, isolation, boredom, 90 minutes of daylight, meeting people through bars and hardened glass. These are just some of the conditions our comrades experience whilst imprisoned. In this article we would like to describe the everyday reality of imprisoned anarchists and outline ways to support them. We call for support of all four defendants and especially for Martin an I., to whom the next few weeks may be critical. We also call for exerting pressure on the Pankrác prison to respect Martin’s vegan diet and towards improving prison conditions in general and Ruzyně prison to respect I.’s vegan diet.
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London: Sweets Way Community House Under Threat

Sweets Way Resists, one of London’s loudest housing protests, has come under threat, after residents were issued with a possession claim on the campaign’s base, 76 Oakleigh Road North.

The Community House, as number 76 is known, has been a meeting point for evicted families and their supporters for nearly six months. But it is more than that. The Community House is a place of refuge, where parents, and their children, can feel at home amidst a time of great turmoil in their lives. We need your help to prevent this refuge being taken away from the people who so desperately need it.
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Amsterdam: The Elephant, new social center threatened with eviction

On the 26th of July a commercial space at the Eerste van Swindenstraat 391 in Amsterdam that had been left empty by property speculators was squatted with the intention of transforming this empty shell into a community social centre: The Elephant.
This space was managed by real estate agency Van Maarschaalkerwaart, known to deliberately leave properties empty for a long time, as a means to make profit through speculation on property markets.

This is a widespread trend amongst property corporations, contributing to the gentrification process in the Dapperbuurt in which small businesses and low-income family are displaced from the neighborhood, through the raising of rents, lack of maintenance and other means. This has taken shape in the destruction of community and cultural spaces, as well as pressure on small businesses, forcing closures. This feature of the gentrification process can be noted clearly in the the closure of two social centres in the Dapperbuurt, as a result of corporations such as DeKey raising the rent to extortionate rates, in order to sell to property developers, speculators, hipster bars, and chain stores. [Read More]

London: Bailiffs sent away! Mostafa still at Sweets Way!

On Monday, people kept a family from being evicted and pushed a council to reverse the decision that would have left them homeless. But we need to keep up the pressure to keep Mostafa and the family safe.

On Sunday night, many of us didn’t go to sleep. Bailiffs were due at 46 Sweets Way and because we had seen what Mostafa and his family had gone through, and we had seen them failed over and over again by the various systems that are meant to protect them, we knew we needed to prepare with them to stay in their home. [Read More]

London: All out for Sweets Way!

In the last 48 hours, everything has ramped up at Sweets Way for what is likely to be a major confrontation between those who believe in the right to housing and community, and those who would see London cleansed of all but the wealthiest.

Annington has sent in contractors, Cuddy, to prepare the estate for demolition. Fences have begun to be erected around large swathes of the estate and contractors and security guards have begun to more actively intimidate us.

Yesterday two bailiffs, with two policemen in tow, attempted to deliver court orders to occupiers. However, through a strong showing of people power, we sent them away, peacefully preventing the delivery of the notices.

Meanwhile, Mostafa and his family – the last remaining household on Sweets Way – have been told by Barnet Council’s solicitors that High Court bailiffs will be coming to evict the family on Monday morning. [Read More]

London: Help us rebuild the People’s Regeneration Show Home!

New occupation and community-led refurbishment will highlight that ‘regeneration’ doesn’t need to be another word for ‘social cleansing.’ Come down now and help make it happen! [Previous stories here]

Good morning London! As most of you started your work days today, dozens of us began to repair the damage inflicted by Annington Properties to one of their buildings – one of our homes – on the Sweets Way Estate.
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Amsterdam: July 25th, demo, the Village of the ADM moves to the city

UPDATE: The demo from tomorrow is postponed to another date!

Saturday July 25th 2015, Demonstration, parade starting at 15.00,  De Dokwerker, Jonas Daniel Meijerplein.
We take our village to the city and show who we are and what we do. We live at the ADM for a reason. The fringe- and free-zone freely wandering human being needs a place too. We won’t give up and we’ll show in theatrical form that we are an addition and therefore should stay. Join us and express yourself. This will be epic.

ADM is under threat. The destructive forces of greed, power, big industry and Economic growth have focused their eyes on our little oasis in the Amsterdam Harbor. This little self organized experimental community of more then 120 people is more important then a ship yard which is what the owner wants to change our little village into. Lets keep ADM an autonomous and free.

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