London: Squatter’s Digest, to our friends, and former room-mates

Summer is waning, holidays have been had, and so we all go back to the grindstone — and by grindstone I mean opening new squats. So let’s start by taking a look at who needs to open a new building.

Location, Location, Location (That’s A Squat Crew Moving Thrice In A Month)

In London, the Church, home to an endless number of benefit parties over the last year, finally met its demise at the hands of the bailiffs just a few weeks ago, leaving a particular void in terms of readily-available squats that are able to host such events (of course it does not escape me how a building can be fairly easily opened just a couple of days in advance of such festivities, but it does entail a whole lot more work). All and sundry are invited to fill this gap, such things are needed as at least one planned fundraiser was scuppered by this eviction.

In a similar area of south-east London, the Charity Shop squat on Deptford High St was re-opened temporarily. Used previously to great effect by the previous crew to organise local action in the neighbourhood, unfortunately the new crew have not been given much time as the owner seems to have gotten his shit together and gone immediately for an Interim Possession Order. [Read More]

Berlin: Expropriate Everything

It’s an unusually warm Saturday in Berlin—if it even makes sense to refer to the weather as “unusual” anymore. I wake up early, read a bit, write some emails, change some diapers, and then head out to meet some friends at the café before the big demo. The Mietwahnsinn or “rent insanity” protest is an annual gathering of tens of thousands of people at Alexanderplatz who come together to loudly and colorfully decry the seemingly unstoppable rise of rents in the German capital. Like most big protests here, it feels like a party. Strolling down Karl-Marx-Allee, a massive boulevard built in Stalinist style for East Berlin, 40,000 human beings throb to the bass—young, old, parents, roommates, co-workers, students, tenants, and activists all drifting together in common disarray, like a roving concert, shouting about rent-sharks, high costs of living, and, most of all, expropriation. The word is on everyone’s lips, not least the city senate, the big property owners and real estate companies, the struggling tenants and just about anyone else who’s read the paper, watched the news, or walked the streets where posters, banners and graffiti calling for the expropriation of Deutsche Wohnen & Co are ubiquitous. In most cities, such radical slogans would be ignored or dismissed as the infantile fantasies of an ultra-left fringe. But not here. The demand to expropriate the largest profit-oriented property owners in Berlin—in other words, to socialize over 200,000 private apartments—is a serious proposal, one that may, in fact, take place. How did this happen? [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]

Greece: Exarcheia under police occupation!

Alert! What we have been announcing to you for a month and a half has just begun this morning, just before dawn. Athens’ famous rebel and supportive neighbourhood is completely surrounded by huge police forces: many riot police buses (MAT), anti-terrorist untis (OPKE), police on motorbikes (DIAS), members of the secret police (asfalitès), as well as a helicopter and several drones.

A unique place in Europe for its high concentration of squats and other self-managed spaces, but also for its resistance against repression and its solidarity with precarious and migrants, Exarcheia has been in the sight of the right-wing government since its election on 7 July. The new Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis had made it a personal affair, especially since he had been mocked in early August for failing to achieve his goal of “cleaning Exarcheia in a month” as he had announced with great fanfare.

This morning, 4 squats were evicted: Spirou Trikoupi 17, Transito, Rosa de Foc and Gare. The offensive currently concerns the north-western part of the district, with the notable exception of the Notara 26 squat, which is considered better guarded and very symbolically important for the district as the first historical squat of the “refugee crisis” in downtown Athens. [Read More]

Freiburg (Germany): KTS-anniversary – 25 years and no end in sight!

The autonomous social centre KTS Freiburg exists since 25 years and we would like to celebrate this unique place of culture and politics. From the 16th until the 26th of October a diverse program of noncommercial exhibitions, DIY culture, protest, demonstrations and celebrations will be awaiting you. We are looking forward to a cracking festival full of libertarian, autonomous, queer-feminist, radical-ecological and political education intervention, which will strengthen our structures and will make our anti-capitalistic utopias visible.

After the fights of the 1980s and through squatting in Vauban from 1994 on, the “new autonomous social centre” was established in the Baslerstraße since 1998. Here, we organise and fight for emancipation and against the right – and intend to stay a thorn in side of the reactionaries. The repressions of the last years, attacks by our political enemies and the lawsuit against Indymedia linksunten do not keep us from expanding this place for anarchist politics. By now, several generations are celebrating and fighting with the backing of the autonomous social centre, and, with all their power, stand up against the swing to the right within society – which seems to be more needed than ever. [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]

Bologna (Italy): The bulldozers of the Partito Democratico against XM24

The bulldozers of the PD of Bologna against XM24, the historic social center of Via Fioravanti, active for 17 years. After years of threats, at dawn on Tuesday August 6, bulldozers, armored vehicles and dozens and dozens of uniforms showed up to clear the XM24. The declared objective of the mayor PD Merola’s junta is to gentrify the area, between students for money and other real estate operations, cloaked in the usual rhetoric of “decorum”. Inside and outside XM24 there are hundreds of solidarity workers, to defend the experience of self-management of the social space.

5 p.m. – The activists who have been resisting the eviction of the XM24 since dawn this morning are still on the roof. Gradually, the other people who were inside the building went out and joined the garrison that is still in progress in the parking lot near the social center. In the meantime, the workers continue to work quickly to demolish most of the structures inside the building and take away the material. The destruction of the garden also began a short while ago. It began shortly after 15.30, after the meeting at the police headquarters between a delegation of the XM24, the city councilor for culture, Matteo Lepore and Valerio Montalto, general manager of the municipality. [Read More]

Pisa: Galeone Occupato has been evicted

On 30 July 2019 has been evicted Galeone Occupato, located at via Lucchese 65, in Pisa, an anarchist squatted building existing since 26 May 2017. A huge deployment of law enforcement, along with the fire brigade, arrived near the building at around 10.30 am. Following the raid, a comrade was arrested (later released) and another comrade barricaded himself on the roof of the building in an attempt to resist the eviction as long as possible, while comrades in solidarity arrived nearby. Finally the Galeone was evicted after a few hours.

Eleven people were notified of investigations with allegations of abusive occupation, theft of electricity and damage to Enel (company that manages energy supply) cabins. With reference to these investigations, the public prosecutor had initially requested the obligation not to enter the city (“foglio di via”) with the obligation to sign to the police station for a certain period. [Read More]

Greece: The hunt for anarchists is on!

The new government is setting up an unprecedented offensive against the libertarian and self-managing movement, which has become embarrassing and reputed over the years.
The newly elected Prime Minister and leader of the right, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, promised to “clean up Exarchia” during the summer and “get rid of Rouvikonas”. Beyond the famous libertarian neighborhood and the elusive anarchist group, the entire revolutionary nebula and the squat network are targeted, using various repressive tools and processes.
Once again, what is happening in Greece gives food for thought to what is also being prepared elsewhere in Europe, as the Greek example has clearly shown the way, in the past, for the new hardening of capitalism on the continent and for an increasingly authoritarian society.
The government will start by reactivating the rogue laws already in place in the 1920s, which were then aimed at both the Greek Communist Party and the anti-authoritarians.
This time, the aim is, first of all, to hinder anarchist propaganda by literally considering its revolutionary political project as an immediate threat, and therefore liable in these terms to prosecution. In short, censorship, not anarchist propaganda as such, but as “threatening speech” whenever it represents a “danger to social order and civil peace”. [Read More]

Cologne: Elster230 evicted

– Police evicts Elster230 with large contingent
– Brutal police action
– Simultaneous eviction of squatted house ZentraleM in Münster
– Occupants announce demonstrations today in Cologne and Münster

This morning around 9am, a large police contingent forcibly invaded the Elster at Vogelsanger Str. 230 and evicted the self-governing queer feminist center.
The police’s actions were extremely brutal. In a different way, we observed, in addition to the measures of fixation mentioned above, that a person was tied up with cable ties and brutally dragged across the Lidl parking lot to a police car. There are several people with injuries and we saw that civil servants kneeled on the activists backs for a very long time, while the activists were already lying on the floor with their faces fixed.
In the middle of this scenario, Mrs. Windischmann (Head of Region West DB Real Estate) did not let herself miss the opportunity to enter the house and thus demonstrate her power. With this relentless eviction, the 1,5 week revitalization of the previously vacant property is abruptly ended. [Read More]