Last Wednesday, hundreds of people occupied part of the Presidency’s regional office, in the centre of São Paulo, during a protest organized by the MTST (“Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Tetos” – Homeless Workers Movement) against the current government. The action has taken place on Avenida Paulista, the biggest street in the centre of the city, with hundreds of protesters. It was organized against austerity policies and the interruption of the national program of public housing construction. It was also opposing the eviction by the police last Sunday of dozens of homeless activists who were camping in front of the current (Michel Temer) President’s residence as a way of demonstrating against his government.
Warsaw: Update on arrests, Radykalne Ogrody Działkowe raided
[Correction Radykalne Ogrody Działkowe was raided only, no eviction attempt]
On the night between Sunday the 22nd & Monday the 23rd of May three comrades were detained near the car park of South Warsaw police station. Cops claim to have found an explosive device under a police car. All three comrades were taken into custody at the station and one comrade was severely beaten. The comrades refused to cooperate and denied all accusations of ‘terrorism’ and attempting to bomb the police station. The comrades received support from the anarchist community and 3 squats from Warsaw (Przychodnia, Syrena, Radykalne Ogrody Działkowe) and were provided with legal representation.
The same day police raided Radykalne Ogrody Działkowe squat where one of the arrested comrades lived and search for evidence. According to the “Reclaim The Fields” website: “Cops arrived between 4 and 5AM. They invaded the squat area by cutting fences and demolishing the gate with a forklift. Six undercover police invaded people’s rooms. One friend woke up and found himself surrounded by cops questioning him about his identity. They then proceeded to search the entire squat.”
[Read More]
Warsaw: Open letter in connection with the arrest of three anarchists
On the night of May 23rd, the police in Warsaw arrested three anarchists on charges of an alleged arson attempt of a police vehicle. The three were transferred to a remand prison where they are to be held in custody for three months, awaiting trial. They face up to 8 years in prison. Media frenzy broke out over the arrest in the past few days, with high-ranking politicians and experts on terrorism discussing the matter on TV. Photos and video reruns of the arrested walking with chains around their feet and hands are broadcast on public transportation. The text below is a translation of the statement that was sent out by various groups from the anarchist and wider social justice community in Poland, in response to these arrests.
Open letter in connection with the arrest of three anarchists in Warsaw
The mass media in Poland are releasing increasingly more absurd, one-sided reports about the arrest of three anarchists on Monday, May 23rd. We interpret this as an attempt to intimidate and criminalize social justice movements in Poland.
[Read More]
Greece: City Plaza Hotel Athens
A refugee-housing squat as an example of how to fight social struggles together on a daily level and for another tomorrow.
„The City Plaza squat at 78 Acharnon celebrates its first month. The hotel now houses refugee families totalling 385 people, including 180 children. These include 22 single parent families, as well as people with disabilities. The nationalities that make up City Plaza include Afghans, Kurds, Syrians, Palestinians, Iranians, Iraqis and Pakistanis. The families being housed at City Plaza were selected on the basis of their previous “housing” arrangement as well as on the particular problems being faced by each one. Each family lives in a separate room of the hotel, while all inhabitants are provided with breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as with hygiene products and other essentials. Nearly all are covered through solidarity offerings, while the few purchases that need to be made are financed through donations sourced from within Greece and from abroad.
In a framework of self-organization and coexistence, there are teams for cleaning, cooking, security, education and childcare, medical care, communications, reception, as well as regular assemblies of refugees and solidarians. Initiatives such as that of City Plaza, apart from granting obvious rights and needs, also put in practice a conception of everyday life which aims to, through self organization and “bottom up” emancipation, ultimately form a space of freedom and creativity, which will act as living proof of the society which we envision.“ This is how the call for an Open Assembly in the City Plaza Hotel in Athens starts. [Read More]
Netherlands: The current housing crisis and the repression of squatting
The vacancy crunch: The current housing crisis in the Netherlands and the repression of squatting
Recently, an opportunity to discuss the current housing crisis in the Netherlands was wasted. The government published a report evaluating a law realised in October 2010 which both criminalised squatting and suggested a few paltry measures to combat building vacancy (see “From Convicting to Condoning: Evaluation of the Squatting and Vacancy Act” [Dutch]). The report received a few mentions in the media but was accompanied by no real analysis. Whilst the Minister for Safety and Justice writes in a letter to Parliament that “this assessment does not require policy changes,” a careful look at the statistics produced by the report instead indicates that much more could be done (see “Presentation of report evaluating the Squatting and Vacancy Act” [Dutch]). The number of people needing to be housed is increasing, and the best way to solve this problem is to liberate the empty building stock, putting it back into use through both legislative measures and squatting.
[Read More]
Barcelona: Third Statement of El Banc
We’ll try to enter again
May 27, 2016
Whatever might be said by the City Council about this conflict, it does not take place between private parts, it is a conflict between two ways of living: those who want a common life and to relate through mutual support networks, produced among equals, and those who defend private property – regardless of its use – and the supremacy of some over others.
[Read More]
Barcelona: Second statement of El Banc
[May26] These days are being very intense and this is why we’re having difficulties to spread informations as a collective. Within our capacities, we will add more detail to our version of the facts of these last few days and also our opinion on many aspects of the conflict that is taking place.
First of all, we would like to thank all the people that moved from solidarity to explicit engagement with the project of El Banc Expropiat.
[Read More]
Prague: Repressions against social center Klinika
For the second time in less than a week the Czech police has invaded the autonomous social centre Klinika in Prague under the pretext of looking for explosive devices after receiving an anonymous email claiming to have planted bombs in the building.
After the first invasion on Friday 20, few activists managed to stay on the roof of the building while the police evicted everybody and handed the building to the representative of the state, the owner of the building. However, later in the evening Klinika was successfully occupied again.
Today’s invasion under the same pretext of looking for a bomb has led to arrests, activists on the roof and again, to an eviction from the building, occupied in late 2014. Paradoxically, today was the day when activists gathered in front of the office responsible for managing state property to pay the fine of approx. 40 € per day for each day of occupation after the one year contract expired early this year, amounting to a total of 40000 Czech crowns (over 1500 €).
In February Klinika was the target of a neonazi attack motivated mainly by the significant role Klinika has played in collecting and delivering aid to refugees on the Balkan route (mainly in Hungary and Serbia) as well as helping collectives assisting refugees in transit through the Czech Republic. [Read More]
Barcelona: El Banc Day 2 – Brief Re-occupation
Ephemeral re-squat before heavy police charges in a second night of protestscops stop reoccupation
On Tuesday evening a new series of demos converged on the evicted autonomous social center, the ‘Expropriated Bank’ in Barcelona’s Gracia barrio. A group of protesters opened the welded steel plates and re-occupied amid wild cheering, just before the Riot Police commenced a series of brutal charges, that resulted in 19 injured. Fresh demonstrations are called for tonight, Day 3.On the evening of Tuesday, May 24, there were demonstrations and rallies in several districts of Barcelona, in a second day of fighting the eviction from the freed space in Gràcia. Among others, there have been meet-ups in Sarrià, Sants, Raval and Manresa. A concentration in Sants of 200 people joined the group of protesters and continued towards the Gracia district.
In several streets of Gracia there were spontaneous pot and pan banging sessions by neighbours amid cries of rejection against the performance of the Catalan riot police
At Gracia, about 400 people concentrated in the Plaza of the Revolution and moved down the Torrent de l’Olla towards the ex Expropriated Bank anarchist social center. [Read More]
Barcelona: 15 injured in riots against eviction of the expropriated bank
The ‘Expropriated Bank’, a self-managed occupied social center in the beautiful Gracia barrio of Barcelona, has finally fallen. Symbol of resistance to repression and austerity , colleagues called for the occupation of 1000 more banks.
Seeding Mutual Aid against Capitalism
The eviction was not an easy task, it took police more than eight hours, using metal cutters, etc., to extricate the last heroes. The police struggled all day to get them out of a barrel of cement, itself inside a safe, inside the basement with metal barricades.
Meanwhile, reinforcements gathered and marched from several pre-organized points in the city until by 9.00 pm at least 2000 filled the narrow streets, but the entire front of the Bank had been welded shut with iron plates.
An army of very aggressive riot police, masked and without ID plates and with a helicopter, moved into the crowds of young people. Only for good luck no one was killed. [Read More]
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