Amsterdam (The Netherlands): Spuistraat 199 squatted for 30 years, Snake Festival

By: fawda - February 24th, 2013  Filed under: News

Wednesday March 6th 2013, at 14:02, the Slangenpand (the “Snake House”) is precisely squatted for 30 years (March 6th 1983). During this time, a group of motivated and involved inhabitants has been building, living, creating, partying, protesting, breeding and much more.

March 6th 2013, it is also exactly one year that we opened the ground floor as “De Slang”. In one year, De Slang hosted (foto) exhibitions, theater, film screenings and concerts. We often hear “Amsterdam needs an open and accessible art space like De Slang”.

2013 is probably the year in which it will be clear whether the house is evicted and turned into free market living space, or if it can continue as a creative incubator. 2013 is the Year of the Snake, is it a good sign? In any case, we’ll make every effort to keep the Slangenpand. [Read More]

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UK: Criminalising squatting, empty homes and property guardianship

By: Rosa - February 23rd, 2013  Filed under: News

‘Property guardianship’ or ‘anti-squatting’ is a phenomenon which started in the Netherlands in the 1990s and has now spread to five other European countries, including the UK. Property guardians are essentially unofficial security guards, who pay to inhabit a building as their home, under the tenure of ‘license’.

Crucially, this is not a tenancy, and has none of the corresponding automatic rights of security of tenure. ‘Guardians’ usually pay £15-100 a week to do this, depending on the company involved, and the area they are in – the cost is always below market rent.

[Read More]

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London (UK): Eileen House opened by Self-Organised London as new social space

By: dolph-l - February 21st, 2013  Filed under: News
Self-Organised London Social Space opened in squatted office building near Elephant and Castle

Eileen House on 80-94 Newington Causeway, a 1960s office building, has now been empty for years. Its redevelopment has been subject to a protracted and contested debate between Southwark Council, Oakmayne developers, local residents, the famous nightclub “Ministry of Sound” (located opposite Eileen House) and – the mayor of London.
After numerous months of haggling and bureaucratic warfare, it’s time to reclaim Eileen house for the public and the interests of the Elephant’s residents!
On Tuesday night, a number of social centre collectives squatted Eileen House as a direct action against gentrification. As a selforganised London Social Space, we want to propose & exchange ideas for radical alternatives, serving the needs of the many vibrant and organic communities around E&C! [Read More]
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Athens: Attempted reoccupation of Skaramaga squat ended up with mass detentions in the area of Exarchia and one comrade faced with misdemeanor charges

By: Rosa - February 19th, 2013  Filed under: News

A two-day event in solidarity with all squats, self-organized projects and self-managed structures of counter-information (targeted by repression ever since the first police raid on Villa Amalias squat on the 20th of December 2012) was called for the 15th and the 16th of February 2013 in the Athens Polytechnic School, in Exarchia.

[Read More]

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A house is to be taken, a rent not to be paid! On the ongoing rise of the (new) squatter movement in Torino, Italy

By: Rosa - February 16th, 2013  Filed under: News

Torino: evictions/sfratti defeated last January

In December 2012, a zine was released on the subject of the struggle against the sfratti in Torino.

Lutte contre les sfratti à Turin (English translation in the works).

At large, this booklet was a compilation of texts, consisting as much subjective stories (allowing to understand the practices put at play) than more theorical reflexions on the perspectives of this ongoing struggle.

[Read More]

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St. Louis (USA): Squats Served Eviction Notices

By: Rosa - February 16th, 2013  Filed under: News

As you may already know, some of the squats in St. Louis received sad news earlier this month: eviction notices.

In case you’ve never had the chance to meet them in person, the houses are part of a six-and-a-half year old squatter community. Some of them are quite small and others quite large. Always with the desire to push ourselves in terms of what we thought we were capable of, we created an orchard, vegetable and medicinal herb gardens, an outdoor movie theater, and a wood-working studio in the squatted houses and surrounding lots. Three years ago we started a social space, A Boulder on the Tracks, which itself is the base for benefits, reading groups, discussions, parties, shows, a pamphlet and book distro, a lending library and a weekly food-sharing with our friends and neighbors.

[Read More]

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Barcelona: Can Piella will neither resign

By: Rosa - February 16th, 2013  Filed under: News

Can Piella’s project is again threatened with prudential eviction from 15 February on. However, the collective of neighbours that gives life to it for three years and a half are more determined than ever to continue the social use of the house. The Cerdanyola Court has taken up the precautionary evacuation of Can Piella’s farm, which was paralyzed in October after social mobilization in defense of this place. This interim resumes after the Provincial Court rejected the appeal presented by the neighbors. Thus, February 15 has been set up as the date for “leaving voluntarily” the house, and otherwise the use of the force will be used to dislodge it.

The collective continues relying on dialogue as the only tool to resolve the conflict. And this is because it has been through dialogue that, throughout the 3 years and a half of the project, more and more neighbours of the nearby towns have been interested and engaged in it. A recent example of this success would be the ecological horticulture course that is conducted every Sunday for free, where more than 120 people joined. Even the mayors of the two closest towns have jointly requested the judge to suspend the eviction and to close the case. The only part which with the dialogue has been impossible has been the property, a real estate company of the conglomerate Grupo Alcaraz, which is based on a purely economist view of the estate, incompatible with the social project that the collective is developing . [Read More]

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Bordeaux: The HP, squatted psychiatric hospital

By: fawda - February 15th, 2013  Filed under: News
Psychiatric_Hospital_Bordeaux

H.P. in French is short for psychiatric hospital. There are several of them in Bordeaux. But one of them has no doctors and nurses. It has no beds or waiting rooms, no registers and does not require a health insurance. Le H.P. is in a huge building parts of which got squatted three years ago by artists to open ateliers in deserted flats.

Some of the flats are now also squatted for living, in some of them there are parties happening every now and then, some of them are quiet working spaces and some of them are galleries or open spaces for Art Symphosiums … but this is kept rather secret.

The most prominent part of the H.P. is a huge room that is used as a dance floor. It is totally silent around this anonymous block of flats next to the highway on the outskirts of Bordeaux. To find the H.P. one has to know that it exists. The entry is an inconspicuously looking door that most people enter only for one purpose: dancing while releashing their crazy enrgies. [Read More]

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Bilbao: A new squat and Kukutza courtcases

By: Rosa - February 15th, 2013  Filed under: News

In October 2012 a giant unused factory building in Sestao (13 km from Bilbao Centre) was squatted.
This squat is seen as the follow up for the in 21-09-2011 evicted Kukutza.
At the same time the aftermath of the Kukutza eviction continues.
The new squat is called “Txirbilenea” and is located in Sestao 13 kilometres outside of Bilbao.

[Read More]

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UK: Anti-Squatting MP hosts DJ Fatboy Slim at Commons

By: Rosa - February 14th, 2013  Filed under: News

The same MP who has tabled an Early Day Motion (EDM) that highlights the need for owners of commercial property to have the same rights as owners of residential premises when it comes to removing squatters has invited musician and DJ Fatboy Slim (aka Norman Cook) to play an unprecendented set at The House of Commons on the 6th March!!! Cook will be performing at Parliament’s terrace bar as the support act for the winner of “the House the House competition”, in aid of the Last Night a DJ Saved My Life Foundation, a charity which is aimed at getting young people involved in their communities.

[Read More]

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Darmstadt, Germany: Solidarity demo for anarchists and squatters in Greece

By: Rosa - February 14th, 2013  Filed under: News

For many people in Greece the living conditions are dramatic, with high unemployment rate, massive austerity measures, cuts in pensions, forced evictions, along with the privatization of important infrastructure. The social and healthcare system has collapsed, while many people can no longer afford to buy food, let alone essential medicines.

[Read More]

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Thessaloniki, Greece : The machines of self-management have been switched on!

By: Rosa - February 13th, 2013  Filed under: News

After 3 days of intense mobilization, the factory of Vio.Me. has started production under workers’ control earlier today! It is the first experiment in industrial self-management in crisis-striken Greece, and the workers of Vio.Me. are confident this is going to be only the first in a series of such endeavors.

The mobilization kicked off with a big assembly of the workers and solidary organizations and individuals in a central downtown theater on Sunday evening. Here the course of action of the solidarity movement was discussed, and everyone had the chance to take the microphone and to express their opinion on the workers’ struggle.
[Read More]

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