Oakland (USA): Stay Away Squat evicted

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The StayAway squat in Oakland was evicted by a paramilitary camo-clad SWAT team with assault rifles. A long-time rent paying resident was also evicted and left homeless, all for the profit of REO Homes.

At around 10am, four heavily armored black SWAT trucks turned heads as they rolled down Vallecito Place in Highland. Deterred by the barricades that had been built in front of the StayAway over the previous month of eviction defense, the camo-clad SWAT team packing AR-15s went up 28th street and entered an adjoining property. This maneuver appears to have been pre-planned, as the neighbor said that while the Sheriff did not gain her consent to pass through her yard, she was addressed by name upon stepping outside. Entering through the backyard with no warning, StayAway residents confronted by this paramilitary squad were forced at gunpoint to abandon their possessions and leave their home with nothing but the clothes on their bodies. Two comrades were arrested and at the time of this writing their charges are unknown, although we know they were taken to Santa Rita County Jail. [Read More]

Accra (Ghana): Proud of being a squatter

“What we all want is to live with dignity. This means for me to be able to be proud of who I am – a slum dweller.”

Those are the words of Bright Dzila, a resident of Old Fadama, the largest shantytown in Accra.

Think Africa Press offers a sympathetic account of the decade-long fight this neighborhood of 80,000 people alongside the Odaw River and the Korle Lagoon has been waging to stave off eviction and be allowed to live in freedom and dignity.

[Source: Squattercity.]

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Cardiff (Wales): Solidarity with squats under attack in Greece and raids in Berlin from ACAB

On August 5th cops in Greece continued their campaign of repression against squats by raiding three squatted spaces in Patras: Parartima, Maragopouleio and the Self-managed Hangout inside the Technological Educational Institute (TEI). 16 comrades were detained in total; 5 squatters and 11 supporters.

While those showing solidarity were later released, the 5 occupants faced charges in court on the 13th. Therefore the next day we painted a banner to express our solidarity with squatters facing charges and evicted from their homes.

Additionally today we hung another banner to show solidarity with the squat Rigaer 94 and all those arrested during raids in Berlin on the 14th. The raids were supposedly related to arson attacks of various job centres and a Molotov attack against police, in solidarity with the revolts in Turkey after the eviction of Gezi Park in Istanbul. [Read More]

Bielefeld (Germany): Banner drop in solidarity with the evicted squats in Patras, Greece

Comrades,

We heard about the eviction of the squats in Patras/Greece. So we put up a banner on the local autonomous centre to show our solidarity and inform the people here.

The banner reads: “Squats Parartima, Maragopouleio, Steki at TEI evicted in Patras. Fight back the state attacks! Freedom for all!”.

Keep on fighting!

Rage and lots of regards from Bielefeld/Germany

Source – Contra Info

Berlin: Police raid Rigaer 94 this morning and other flats, demo tonight at 8pm in solidarity

According to first reports, there were huge police raids on eight house projects and apartments in Berlin, including the Rigaer 94, this morning (14/8). The cops are supposedly looking for people responsible for attacks on various job centers (‘welfare offices’) as well as a recent molotov attack against police, who were conducting a drug raid in Köttbusser Tor during a solidarity demonstration for the revolt in Turkey. More news as it comes…

Below is a call for spontaneous demonstration in response to the raids:

This morning, August 14th, 2013, cops raided several apartments in the Mitte, Kreuzberg and Neukölln neighbourhoods of Berlin.

In Friedrichshain the police deployed a riot squad, along with special task force troops to invade the house project Rigaer Straße 94 [whose front building was already stormed by cops on August 2nd]. [Read More]

Ukraine: Sevastopol military forces evicted squat

In Sevastopol, the Russian military “cleansed” squated cultural center. It seemed to them that the building in which it is found belongs to them.

“Зачистка” Социально Культурного центра
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8VedvgSxTE#at=57

On Saturday, Aug. 10., At 14:00, in Sevastopol held picket. At the date and time of action in Kyiv and other cities, yet lack of information.

[Read More]

Cardiff (Wales): Prison squat resists eviction from High Court bailiffs

On Thursday 8th August, at approximately 10am, High Court bailiffs showed up to join United Welsh representatives, police and contractors booked to secure buildings, in an attempt to evict Rumpoles, Moira Terrace, Cardiff, CF24 0NE (aka: prison squat / 0ne squat). By 12pm, without even attempting to enter, they left the occupiers in possession of the building.

At 9:30am the first few supporters started arriving outside, while some squatters took to the peak of the roof. The outside had been barricaded with furniture, gas bottles, compressed air canisters and a piano, while the inside was  well secured. A ‘Fire 2 the prisons’ banner had also been dropped from the windows the night before, during significant disturbances within Cardiff prison over the road. [Read More]

Greece: Crackdown against three squatted spaces in the port city of Patras

On August 5th, 2013, at about 6.30am, uniformed and plainclothes cops raided and evicted three squatted spaces in Patras, namely Parartima squat on the corner of Corinthou and Aratou streets, Maragopouleio squat on Gounari street, and the Self-managed Hangout inside the Technological Educational Institute (TEI) of Patras. All three squatted spaces were evicted and sealed off by police.

The repressive forces, aided by municipal authorities, confiscated various materials from the squats, and even sealed up the entrance of Parartima squat with bricks. [Update: The Patras free radio station Radio-Katalipsi 93.7FM announced that their equipment was NOT confiscated.]
[Read More]

San Francisco (California): Three Arrested as SFPD Raid Squat “The Crows’ Nest”

Sunday August 4, 2013; morning
426 Capitol Avenue, San Francisco, CA

Three politically active people were arrested this morning at a squatted home in the Ocean View district of San Francisco at 426 Capitol Avenue. The house had been squatted for three months as a home for activists and people in need of housing.

This raid and arrest happens during the so called Eviction Free Summer, a campaign of actions to keep people in their homes in response to the foreclosure crisis. The foreclosure crisis is being perpetuated by some of the biggest banks in the United States, who have been accused of predatory lending practices and other illegal actions against homeowners. Since 2007, the foreclosure crisis has displaced at least 10 million people from more than four million homes across the country. [Read More]

Oakland (USA): Squat defense for the Stay Away Squat

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We are the squat collective at Stay Away in East Oakland. Tuesday, August 6th makes two full weeks we have been living behind the barricades in order to defend and save our home, a radical space, and one of the lasting vestiges of the Occupy Oakland movement. We are still struggling. We are asking the community of the Bay Area; fellow squatters, fellow radicals, our comrades to come out and help us in the event of an attempted forcible removal by the Sheriff’s Department. Oakland has lost too many of its radical spaces. We are facing the same evil corporation, REO Homes LLC, that evicted the G-Spot–another radical space–and the state and corporate forces are trying to quash our movement to live free.

This house has a two year history that rose directly out of Occupy Oakland, and has gone through many changes with many members, but it has remained, and will remain, an activist house. Members of this collective work or have worked with various groups from Food Not Bombs to Cop Watch as well as founding the Park Gardens and many other activist groups. We are a diverse group or individuals working together collectively to provide a space that is liberated from corporate control of our lives, and to be an example of how we can live free of the chains of capitalism. [Read More]

Cardiff (Wales): ACAB take over Canton Police Station

In the early hours of Sunday morning, we entered and occupied Canton Police Station. We did not ask for permission, as it is our legal right to do so. Given Cardiff Police abandoned the building over a year ago, kindly leaving twelve different open windows for us to choose our entrance from, permission seemed a bit of a formality anyway.

We squat because we believe that corporations and landlords have no right to hold property empty for their own profit while people less lucky are homeless, that people should not have to sell their freedom to employers or jump through government hoops to put a roof over their heads, and that the police should not be allowed to act as hired muscle for the rich and powerful, consistently ignoring, abusing and outright breaking the law to maintain the interests of the ruling classes. [Read More]

Hamburg: Open letter to Saskia Sassen

Dear Ms Sassen,

in an interview with the German daily ‘tageszeitung’ published on May, 25th 2013 you answered extensively with regards to your position as curator of this year’s international building exhibition (IBA) currently underway in the Hamburg borough of Wilhelmsburg. Throughout the interview you emphasize that there can be no talk of
‘gentrification’. You virtually refrain from corroborating your statement with hard facts beyond your repeated statement that the managers of the building exhibition show ‘goodwill’ and that it is their ‘declared aim’ to not drive out the ‘local residents’.
We were quite surprised to read this. Judging by a few of your texts which we have studied, it was our understanding that it is your intention to point out a growing polarization as a result of the development of ‘global cities’.
[Read More]