Hamburg: Pro-squat demonstration, with 6 000 people in the streets !

By: liberation - October 29th, 2010  Filed under: News

October 26th, 2010
See https://squat.net/de/news/hamburg261010.htmlfor the original version.

On saturday 23rd of october, about 6 000 people demonstrated in Hamburg against vacancies and for squatting, this was about double the amount of people that was expected.

A broad alliance of 108 initiatives had called for the demonstration.

In the last years there have repeatedly been squattings, that are mostly evicted by the police within a few hours (the last one on the 16th of october).

One of the topics of the demonstration was that more than 1,2 million squaremeters of office space are vacant within the city, still new office blocks are beeing built and in the same time there is no affordable space for living and rents are increasing. The background of this absurdity of the kapitalist property market is the fact that vacant office space can be set off against tax liability.

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Utrecht (NL): A squat brutally demolished while the residents were still inside the building!

By: liberation - October 29th, 2010  Filed under: News

October 27th, 2010
http://indymedia.nl/nl/2010/10/70648.shtml
– english translation –

 

The squat on Gageldijk 71 in Maarssen (just outside of Utrecht, NL) has been brutally demolished while the residents were still inside the building. The residents only just managed to escape by jumping through a window from the first floor into the neighbour’s garden. At that moment the demolition workers, who knew there were people inside the building, were destroying the roof with heavy machinery sending wood, stones and glass flying around.

Just before the first blow from the excavator, one of the residents hung out of the window to inform what was going on. (S)he could barely manage to jump away in time not to be hit by the machine.

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Zürich (Switzerland): The Hotel Atlantis has been squatted

By: liberation - October 23rd, 2010  Filed under: News

Today the Hotel Atlantis on the outskirts of the Swiss economic capital Zureich (too rich) has been squatted. The city is growing but affordable housing and autonomous spaces for experimenting souls are disappearing. Space is needed to live and unfold all the possibilities of human beings.

The action went smooth and the cops didn’t even bothered to show up. As long as the owner doesn’t file a complaint they will not take action. The Company which owns the place is a multinational operating hotel exploitant: Rosebud heritage SA which owns also at least one hotel in Bruxelles. Hotel Atlantis has been empty for 8 years and will give home to various groups which are fighting the overpriced, through and through commercialized and ever increasing repression in one of the richest cities in the world. If you have any experience or information over the Rosebud heritage SA, please shared it with us, so we can make complete picture of their activities. We suspect them for quite some nasty things.

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Hamburg: house squatted and evicted

By: liberation - October 21st, 2010  Filed under: News

21.10.2010

On the 16th oktober a house in Hamburg was squatted just beside the Rote Flora.

Like most squattings in hamburg in the last years it was violently evicted by the police just a few hours later. Seven squatters were taken into custody and released immediately after. The police used watercannons and pepperspray against the supporters on the street.

0ut of the squatting declaration:

“we squatted an empty building in the Schanzenviertel, the house was nearly empty for over 4 years, maybe the owner wants to wait until the Rote Flora is evicted in order to sell the flats for higher prices.
In Hamburg rents are increasing, more and more rental buildings are turned into condominiums and there is more than 1 million squaremeters of vacant office space.
Resistance against this situation is spreading, people who are renting places refuse to pay rent increases, there are repeatedly squattings and on 23 oktober there will be a demonstration against empty houses, empty office buildings and housing shortage.
The demonstration will lead to the “Astra” tower, a huge office building in the middle of town that is 70 % empty.

We’re gonna take the city!
we’re gonna take houses!

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Oxford (UK): Opening and eviction of a new social centre…

By: liberation - October 12th, 2010  Filed under: News

 

– New social centre opened in Oxford!
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2010/12/469848.html

December 5th, 2010

 

As of today the Fox and Hound pub on the corner of Abingdon and Wiers road, derelict since July 2009, has reopened for the use of the local community as a space for free cultural expression and the growth of solidarity in a climate of austerity.

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Amsterdam: Events in Amsterdam over the last few weeks

By: liberation - October 10th, 2010  Filed under: News

09.10.2010

As everyone knew for a long time already the squatting ban finally became a legal entity on the 1st of October. How the law isto be implemented and enforced is still speculated upon. In the week before its arrival there came some very hard talk from the mayor and the chief of police.

 

The mayor stated that 300 squatted buildings and appartments in Amsterdam are to be evicted and that squatting is now a criminal offence and must be treated as so. The chief of police said “man power is no issue” and that the number of eviction waves are to be at least doubled.

 

This was very strong talk coming from the city officials and the response is as follows.

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Amsterdam: Netherlands after the Squatting Ban

By: liberation - October 6th, 2010  Filed under: News

Wednesday 6 October 2010

On the first of October – Squatting in the Netherlands has been criminalised

On the first of October, squatting in the Netherlands has been criminalised. The major cities, though decided not to execute this law.
When the new mayor of Amsterdam Eberhard van der Laan announced a week ago to evict all of the existing 300 squats as soon as possible, people were very surprised and angry at the events.
The next day the main prosecutor for squatting cases Otto van der Bijl and the chief of the special eviction unit Leen Schaap got threatened and are now under 24 hours police protection.

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Amsterdam: Thinking about violence

By: liberation - October 4th, 2010  Filed under: News

Thinking about violence – A critical view on the Amsterdam street-fight in 1st of October
https://indymedia.nl/nl/2010/10/69958.shtml

In advance I want to clarify that I’m totally not a (political) pacifist. I believe in armed struggle and counter-violence against all parts of the repressive system we are living in.
So coming from the Netherlands I was positive surprised by seeing such a lot of people acting offensive against the police brutality. Even If we couldn’t help the people in the house we made clear that repression against us will be answered.

But for me acting militant is not only to use violence as one part of a diversity of tactics, it’s also about reflecting it. Because of this I want to speak about a few aspects of the actions on friday (oct. 1st).

So I don’t want to be arrogant and this is only a subjective point of view. I don’t want to seem like teaching anyone an “one and only truth”. Other people will have a different point of view and so this is just a first input for further going discussions.

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Amsterdam: Callout for squatting resistance

By: liberation - September 18th, 2010  Filed under: News

Published on Indymedia-Uk on september 14th, 2010

A CALL OUT FROM AMSTERDAM

From 1st of October on squatting will be illegal in the Netherlands. These are our last days of ‘legal’ squatting and the first days of our new lives as criminals. Unlike claimed, the new law provides no solution for vacant houses but instead just gives more protection to house owners that love to speculate with their properties. In theory squatting, or simply being in a squatted house, can very soon lead to up to two years in prison.

It is time to revolt against the squatting ban and the State with its repressive politics against everything that is not mainstream and commercial. We will take to the streets – we will show them our anger and our strength. We need to make clear that this law will not scare us and stop us from squatting. With all our actions, with keeping up living the way we do let’s show that we are not afraid of their laws and their bans. This time they should really expect resistance. The time for action is now!

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Harare (Zimbabwe): Another violent police raid on a squatter community leaves 100 families homeless

By: xxx - September 15th, 2010  Filed under: News

August 30th, 2010

Another violent raid on a squatter community in Harare leaves 100 families homeless, the “Zimbabwe Standard” reports.

Police burned scores of shacks, and arrested 55 people, though a department spokesman later denied any knowledge of the raid.

More Murambatsvina?

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France targets Rom’ people

By: liberation - September 15th, 2010  Filed under: News

September 14th, 2010
http://squattercity.blogspot.com/2010/09/france-targets-roma.html

In recent weeks, the government of Nicolas Sarkozy has evicted more than 1,000 Roma residents from their encampments in France and deported them to Bulgaria and Romania. Now, the European Union has called France’s recent crackdown on Gypsy communities “a disgrace”, The Guardian reports:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/14/roma-deportations-france-eu-disgrace

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Geneva (Switzerland): On september 18th, the Zoo invites the Medika Squat (based in Zagreb)

By: liberation - September 7th, 2010  Filed under: News

On 18th September 2010, the ZOO invites artists and performers from Medika Squat based in Zagreb, Croatia. This kind of exchange is the second one we do (previously we invited the Reitschule from Bern, Switzerland) and it’s a way to promote the different places of “subculture” in Europe, including squat culture.

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As we witness our world, founded on principles of money, has faced a recession and the economy in our city is under collapse, the discourse of culture and its engines (Ministry of Culture and the likes) is being silenced by the logic of a capital driven culture industry and bureaucratic processes of cultural institutions.

Autonomous Cultural Center Medika (AKC Medika) was founded on the principle of open doors, where anybody can develop an artistic discourse, be it cultural, educational, or of any other humanitarian nature, in the hope that our providing of space for such activities will be used accordingly. We offer space without any unified context in order to continually develop diversity among programs and projects that are held in the space. Therefore, if the outcome is entertaining, educational, inspirational, or informative we will have reached our goal.

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