One of London’s largest and most active social centres was evicted Friday morning by around 100 police from the Territorial Support Group. According to reports, occupants were rudely awakened by an unruly mob of riot police breaking the inner door to their sleeping area. As no legal process had been initiated, an old warrant for the building was used as a pretext for the eviction. Occupants were in shock with the latest move by the authorities which allegedly defies nearly all the basic rights for every person to justice, as well as contravening Section 6 of the Criminal Law Act 1977.
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London: 100 police illegally evict social centre
Tatekawa Tent Village’s Call for International Action to Stop the Exclusion of Homeless People (March 6, 2012)
Please support the Tatekawa Tent Village by sending a message to the Koto Ward office to protest recent evictions.
The situation is dire and your responses could help prevent another eviction.
Please send faxes to the three parties listed below before the end of March.
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Montréal, Canada: Police violence and retaliation
Since the last February14th, a vast strike movement is shaking the post-secondary studies sector (colleges and universities) in the province of Québec. This general strike movement, mostly lead by a left-wing coalition of student unions – the CLASSE (French acronym for Broad Coalition of the Association for Student Syndicalist Solidarity) – has set itself, as an immediate objective, the cancellation of the recent 25% tuition fees raise implemented by the neoliberal government of Québec, the second such raise in 4 years, after more than 15 years of tuition fee freezing. The movement is now 125,000 striking students strong and many strike votes will be held in the coming weeks by student assemblies. Many massive street demos gathering thousands of people, as well as blockade actions have been organized, triggering more and more police repression.
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Ljubljana: What is Zadruga Urbana?
“Zadruga Urbana” is a group of people who came together with the shared dissatisfaction for the current system of food production, who believe in the necessity for a collective movement to take the process into their own hands. We believe that collective gardens raise people’s awareness of producing their own food, consuming locally and being autonomous/productive, enabling individuals without land of their own to produce food with a sensitivity for their local natural environment.
Our group wants to bring people together to learn and promote the ideas to find solutions for change towards a more sustainable life regardless of previous experience. Everyone is welcome to participate in our gardens and network, to learn and share the skills of producing our own food. We aim to use local seeds and to fertilize our crop naturally.
Our vision is to connect individuals and collectives in a horizontal, non-hierarchical way, to promote autonomy in local food production and freer access to public land. We also plan to reclaim/collectivize more locations in urban spaces and organise guerilla gardening. We hold regular lectures and talks on a range of permacultural and environmental topics such as beekeeping, composting and germination which are free to attend. We have a plans to create vegetable and seed bank/market as well as social kitchen with produce which is in line our aims. [Read More]
Italy: Eviction of Baita Clarea
Eviction of “Baita Clarea”(a house constructed by activists which is in the area of the future highspeed train line) and murder attempt in Val Susa.
On saturday a peaceful nationwide demonstration of more than 50,000 participants against the construction of a highspeed train line between Torino and Lyon took place in Val Susa in the west of Torino. After the demonstration the police started beating up about 500 participants of the demonstration on their way home to Milano at the central train station in Torino.
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Reading, UK: Lasting Roots
“Process to remedy Katesgrove ‘eyesore’ begins” read the Get Reading headline on 23 February 2012. The following article explained that “plans for a new community garden in Katesgrove could blossom” following a recent council decision to purchase a piece of derelict land. This news means a lot to the members of Reading L&S as it marks the ongoing victories of a land occupation they first began six years ago.
In late 2006, a group of friends squatting in a closed down women’s centre on a busy junction in the Katesgrove neighbourhood of Reading, hatched a plan. The three council owned buildings next door had been derelict for years and the gardens behind them had become a junkies paradise. The ‘secured’ gardens had long become unsecured and needles were strewn everywhere where any child could find them.
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New squat in Cologne, Germany: Our first statement
On 2nd March 2012 we, a group of leftist people, squatted an abandoned building at Deutz-Mülheimer-Straße, near the old industrial complex of the KHD-Group in Cologne.
We want to develop a collective here. The squat is a place for both, working and living beside the capitalistic enforcement. We want to live with each other without hierarchically structured regulation.
Cardiff, Anarchist Social Centre
We are the Red and Black Umbrella Collective, a group of anarchists based in Cardiff, Wales, squatting an old pub on Clifton Street. Since the end of October 2011 we’ve worked hard to restore the derelict building and have opened our doors for gigs, workshops, film nights, people’s kitchen, prisoner support letter writing and language lessons. The social centre includes an info shop, free shop, radical library and bike workshop. This is just the beginning, and there is much more to come in the autumn of this year.
We’ve had the police and landlord break in illegally, as well as visits from the fire fighters, arson police and South Wales Echo, who we told to fuck off because they’re a reactionary right wing newspaper. Despite all this, somehow we’re still here, and we intend to be here as long as possible. [Read More]
UK: Reclaim Hinkley Eviction – Occupiers Arrested
The occupation of Langborough Barn on EDF’s Hinkley Point Development site came to an end today, as over 20 Bailiffs and 10 police officers began the eviction at 6am this morning. It took around three hours for them to remove the Barnstormers.
UK: Lords knock coalition squat plan
On Wednesday night the proposed new law to criminalise squatting in residential properties (clause 130 of the LASPO Bill) was debated in the House of Lords. This was, in fact, the first time the clause has been properly debated since it was proposed. Or rather, the first time since the 1st November when the government slipped the clause into a bill which was in its last stage in the House of Commons.
France: Warning on the ZAD?
From the outcomes of the court trials in September and October, the situation had seemed clear:
The houses under the jurisdiction of Nantes who presented a defence (Le Rosier, La Sècherie, La Saulce) have a delay until November, while those that were not defended (Saint-Jean du Tertre, Le Pré Failli, L’Après Faillite) are evictable as of the 9th January. Houses under the jurisdiction of Saint-Nazaire (Les Planchettes, Bel Air, La Gaité, Le Tertre) are, in contrast, entitled to the winter truce (until 15th March). The judge acknowledged the absence of break and entry and found that “[the buildings] and their occupants are not at risk and [the properties] are not intended for immediate use.” As for the occupied land without surveyed and registered houses, no procedure is in progress, which doesn’t mean they’re not threatened with eviction!
However, since early January 2012, it feels like things are heating up: passing helicopters, constant rotation of police patrols and even a civil “crisis management” team! Worse, the bailiffs went Les Planchettes, in Bel Air, la Gaité and le Tertre to give the command to leave, “if necessary with the assistance of the Police Force, a locksmith and removal men». [Read More]