Notre-Dame-des-Landes (France): Yet Another Forest Eviction, 5th November 2012

We live in the Rohanne Forest. Over the last two years the many people who lived and passed by here built seven high tree houses and a beautiful three storey collective house. On Thursday 19th October the police came with bulldozers and destroyed and removed the house.

Starting the next day, and with lots of motivated helpers, we built a new kitchen six metres up in the trees, and a new communal sleeping area a bit higher. On Tuesday 30th October and Wednesday 31st October they returned with bulldozers and cherry pickers to destroy the two newly finished cabins, plus all of the seven high tree houses. [Read More]

Notre-Dame-des-Landes (France): Operation Obelix, a menhir in your face, Ayrault!

Story of the assaults and looting by the forces of capitalist destruction. Written thanks to the testimony of many friends.

*Le Sabot* –  Tuesday,

We woke up at 5:00am and had coffee together. The cops showed up by the Paquelais road around 7:00am at daybreak. We got the info that the cops had attacked the south barricade. They moved without the usual three warnings, they spent thirty seconds at the burning barricade before getting some paint-eggs in their faces. They secured the whole road from the Far Ouezt to Sabot. Clashes occured at the first barricades of the Sabot. Cops managed to bypass the barricades through the fields and make us move back by copiously spraying tear gas in our faces. Sixty of us charged the cops. An exchange of various colourful projectiles and colorful shots against their tear gas. Cops and officials are forced to retreat, suffocated by their own tear gas, those big assholes. We spend all the afternoon in a tense face off. [Read More]

Notre-Dame-des-Landes (France): About evictions and current resistance

From tuesday morning (16th of october), the ZAD has been invaded and occupied 24 hours a day by hundreds of policemen. They are putting down, step by step, the occupied houses and huts. They destroy and take them away, brick by brick, out of the area to prevent us rebuilding or resisting.

Places and gardens still occupied are regularly harassed, covered with tear gas, trampled… Police try to prevent us gathering and having meetings. From tuesday, occupying people and people who joined us in the area answered back with barricades, by blocking the roads the cops use, reoccupations, throwing things, fire, insult and sarcasm… For four days now, under the rain, hundreds of people defend the area whatever it takes, against the police, and plan to stay there. Demonstrations, actions take place every night in Nantes, and other towns. And it’s not over. [Read More]

Amsterdam (The Netherlands): November 2012 Joe’s Garage program

Get ready, a European Strike is announced for November 14th. Would governments fear a global insurrection? The deepening crisis is spreading like a plague. Chaos hasn’t reached the Netherlands yet. The Dutch government has never spent so much money on security per capita as now. Travelling anonymously is becoming a luxury. Your moves and communications are being traced, recorded and analysed. And you still worry about your privacy?
Another fear is visible, in Greece. The one for every migrant walking in the street. Golden Dawn has infiltrated all layers of society. The myth of a superior race hasn’t yet vanished. International solidarity is more needed than ever for Greece for those fighting fascism and facing repression on a daily basis. In the Netherlands, refugees are building camps in cities. There is lots of work to be done in front of your own door. Your active participation at Joe’s Garage is also welcome. Choose your day.

This month, Joe’s goes out again, to the Bajesdorp Festival and to the Krugerplein to celebrate a sustainable Transvaalbuurt. Further, you can drop by on a benefit night; for the Osdorp Notweg refugee camp, for the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Campaign, for the people getting arrested on November 14th, for the Roomtuintje Oostbos and for the ZAD in France. You can inform yourself about Zapatistas at the Infonight Zapatista Indigenous Communities in Chiapas, or you can join the cosy cinema on sunday night with Loners, Freedom Ahead or Jonas will be 25 in the year 2000. Joe’s Garage is open six days a week, thanks to you. [Read More]

Athens (Greece): Eviction of the housing squat on Spyridonos Trikoupi street in Exarchia

On October 30th, at around 10am, anti-riot squadrons stormed the streets surrounding Exarchia square and violently evicted the housing squat on Spyridonos Trikoupi street. According to the initial information, approximately ten people were taken to the Exarchia police station, while the ‘legal’ owners of the building have not (yet) filed a lawsuit against the detained squatters.

Update, 18.00 (GMT+2): The ‘landlords’ filed a lawsuit against the squatters. All detainees will be held at the police station until tomorrow, 31/10, when they are expected to appear before prosecutor. [Contra Info]

Notre-Dames-Des-Landes: The struggle continues against the airport project

ZAD_eviction_France

The ZAD is an aeroport protest site in the west of France about 15 miles north of Nantes. The aeroport project was first proposed over forty years ago and has faced constant local resistance ever since. The project is in the hands of the multinational company Vinci, who also provide us with such « services » as prisons, motorways and nuclear power stations. It is the particular pet project of Jean Marc Ayrault, the former mayor of Nantes and current Prime Minister of France. In 2009 the area hosted a climate camp, since when the empty houses, fields and forests have been gradually filling up with people disgusted enough by the idea of this project to stay and resist. The reasons for staying are as diverse as the people but the occupiers are united by an idea that fighting capitalism is not just theoretical but something to live in practice every day. [Read More]

Notre-Dame-des-Landes (France): Call out for actions during the moment of eviction of the ZAD

In this autumn of 2012, the opposition to the Notre-Dame-des-Landes airport project is entering a delicate phase. The response which it may elicit from outside the area directly affected will be the deciding factor for the future of this battle.

To create a Deferred Development Zone, ZAD, (land set aside for major development), to compulsory purchase and demolish homes and then to certify the project as a ‘d’utilité publique’, DUP, (declaration of public interest) before even starting the initial survey work, constitutes a grand scam under the guise of Democratic Policy All this has already been done. [Read More]

Bogotá (Colombia): Solidarity action with displaced squatters

On Friday, October 5th, 2012, in a day of solidarity with displaced squatters in Bogotá, approximately 25 people gathered from 12.00 to 2.30pm in front of a squatted residential building at the corner of 47th street and 7th avenue, in order to publicly denounce the appalling housing situation in Colombia and to factually support more than twenty people already displaced from their homes in other locations.
[Read More]

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Thessaloniki: Urgent appeal for international support with Delta squat and imprisoned anarchist immigrant Gustavo Quiroga

UK Indymedia – Statement by Delta squat about the events of eviction
Sunday, September 16th, 2012

A BRIEF CHRONICLE
On September 12th at 6.30 in the morning various different police departments were mobilized for the eviction of Delta squat. EKAM special suppressive antiterrorist units and MAT anti-riot police squadrons bashed into the rooms where the comrades were sleeping, and threw them on the floor when they had already been handcuffed. During this whole operation the comrades suffered both verbal and physical violence. One of them was held so he could be present during the cops’ search of the building though they had his head facing the wall, so he couldn’t see anything. Later on, he declined to sign the search and confiscation report. Some time later all ten arrested comrades were taken to the police headquarters in Thessaloniki.
[Read More]

France: Communique from the ZAD

Press release sent October 17th at 23:30

We live here, we’ll stay here!

After two days of resistance and solidarity, only seven houses and one plot were evicted at the ZAD, a threatened area meant to make place to an airport in Notre-Dame-des-Landes. Everywhere police forces met determinated opponents, inhabitants refusing to leave their houses, their roofs. Demonstrations. direct actions took place around several locations, roads we barricaded, activists keeping joining the ZAD area, etc…

Since hours, opponents are defending several plots, the Far West, the Sabot, a cultivable land back in use since May 2011. Right now, the Sabot in drowned under a cloud of tear gas, with a drumming samba band. Outside the ZAD, many solidarity actions took place, such a demonstration in front of the main state building in Nantes tonight.

Contrary to what was announced by the highest state representative of the region tuesday morning, the area is far from being empty. Around 20 houses remain occupied, this is even not including house owners, renters and farmers still living in the area. The pressure and acts from the police, such as the destruction by fire from one wood hut, without checking if it was still occupied, won’t silent dissent. [Read More]

France: ZAD eviction, news from the front line

Events happening in the ZAD, in Notre Dames des Landes, near Nantes, can be followed minute to minute on the ZAD website. Barricades are still holding on after 2 days of a huge military style operation in an attempt to evict the ZAD inhabitants. The french state is mobilizing an incredible amount of police and military forces. The ZAD is calling for decentralized actions everywhere, now!

English and french eviction time line:
time line Tuesday October 16th
time line Wednesday October 17th
time line Thursday October 18th

Found on the ZAD website: Contrary to what was announced by the prefect tuesday morning, the operation has not yet ended. And we don’t consider that everything “went fine”. [Read More]

Amsterdam Squatting: Crime or Creative Space Use?

Joe’s Garage, autonomous social centre in a squat in Amsterdam Oost

When one door closes, another door opens. Well, that’s hardly ever the case, but who gives a shit anyway? Certainly not the Amsterdam squatter who didn’t hold a key to any front door in the first place.

The Dutch squatting ban has fueled countless discussions over the past two years. Squatters have been around in The Netherlands as the front runners of social action since the early 1960s. As part of a broader political force, the squatting movement in Amsterdam in particular was a direct response to the tremendous housing shortage the city still faces to this date, characterised by high rents and a large number of vacant or abandoned properties. [Read More]