Arlon: Call to resist. Eviction threat at the Zablière on January 26

For more than a year, a piece of land has been torn from the concrete. The former Schoppach sandpit, where wild animals and plants used to coexist with Sunday walks, is threatened by a zoning project for businesses including offices and parking lots, and this since it was bought from the municipality by Idelux-Aive.

Some people decided to occupy this forest in order to defend it against this threat, responding to a call from local residents desperate for attention to their voice. This year was an opportunity to bring about another turning point in the struggle “for the climate” by making it take a real ecological and social turn; from the occupation of roundabouts by yellow vests to a forest occupation by Zadists. In this way, the tree houses made it possible to hear the cries of the birds.

For a year, the winter, police and mafia threats did not succeed in lowering the mood of the Zablière’s occupants, not even a few slanderous opponents. From this impulse of resistance were born direct actions, a book of photos and poetry, a film, a free university, friendships and a lot of other things impossible to describe without being there. [Read More]

Ljubljana: Everyone on the streets. Against the social destruction of the city!

Dear residents of Ljubljana, the whole municipality and all that come here to work, study or because of other obligationas and free-time activities! All are witnesses to the violent intervention of Municipality of Ljubljana (MOL) in the space of Autonomous Factory Rog (AT Rog).

Protest, Friday 22.1.2021 at 18h at Prešernov trg

What happened to the community of AT Rog can happen to many of us. Especially if they do not belong to the rich and property-owning well-off part of society. What happened in Ljubljana can happen in any other town. Violent expulsion of less well-off individuals, families and other communities is written in the fabric of capitalist system of extraction. The so called legal order and the so called rule of law have been exposed many times as instruments that were established mainly in the interest of financial and political elites. Moreover, the state and municipal authorities chose to exploit exactly the moment, when many hardly manage to make ends meet due to changed living conditions as we deal with the issue of basic mental, physical and economic survival. They base themselves in repressive measures, financial punishments and the police apparatus. Any and all political activity outside the parliamentarian arena is forbidden. Schools are closed, rent and other living costs are rising constantly, the workers’ rights are being taken away. They declared war on the people and it is important to understand this. [Read More]

Vitry-sur-Seine: welcome to the Kunda library!

This library project is part of the more general dynamics of our place of life since February 2020. We are about fifty people from all paths of life occupying these buildings belonging to the department of Val de Marne. We are squatting to meet a need to have a roof over our heads and because we refuse to give in to the blackmail of work, rent and money. In short, we squat to find a place to live and to fight.
Since our installation, we have developed various activities that we wish to pursue as best we can despite the pandemic and continue to develop new ones. It is for these reasons that we now present our new library. This self-managed library is, in the continuity of our place, anti-capitalist and against all forms of oppression. Just like our solidarity market, the film club, the sports hall or the various workshops, it is part of a desire for autonomy against institutions, to develop our own contents in a break with a commercial logic. Thus, in this struggle, and since, just like going to the cinema, a book costs at least 10 bucks, we wish to make available for free all the books we can get. This library is thus composed only of recuperation, donations (and theft). We see it as a participatory place for meetings and exchanges and encourage as many people as possible to take advantage of it to propose various activities such as reading circles, book presentations, sales and all other things. This library wants to be as varied as possible. It includes books ranging from theater to political theory, practical guides and novels. A feminist mobile shelf, made up of the meetings without cis men taking place at our place, will also be available during the opening days of the library. A children’s corner with games and stories is also present.
The library will now be open every other Sunday on the same day as the film club sessions, and the return of books will be possible either every Sunday during the solidarity market or through a box in front of our house. Loans will be for a period of one month, renewable for two weeks. We are counting on you to come and read, discuss, participate and meet us! [Read More]

Ljubljana: Stop demolishing autonomous spaces, everyone come to ROG

Call for solidarity

Comrades! Many of you have stayed, fought and loved one of the two squats in Ljubljana. For 15 years Rog was a centre of political activity in the city and in the international movements. Today 19 January 2021, Rog factory was brutally evicted. Many of our comrades were violently beaten and arrested. We are calling for solidarity all around the world. Let’s show the oppressors of all kinds they are messing with the wrong movement!

Statement of Rog factory about eviction

Today, at 7 in the morning, employees of the security company Valina have forcefully entered the spaces of Autonomous factory Rog. Violently, using physical force, they injured some of its users and evicted everybody. Our personal belongings, pets and valuable equipment were left inside, together with 15 years of our dreams, activities, projects, adventures and common experiences. Police has erected fences around Rog and started to beat supporters gathering in support in front of the factory’s gate. In the inside of the complex workers have demolished majority of side structures and smashed windows on the main building that is protected as heritage. At the same time they are taking away, on the unknown location, all the equipment from Rog. More then 10 persons were held in custody, among them some of the injured that need medical help. We do not have access to them and we don’t have information on where all of them were taken. [Read More]

Greece: New Year’s Notes under Lockdown

At this time, we are reminded of our comrades through banners and graffiti, through brief encounters under the guise of getting exercise between curfews, and through the courageous actions of those who turn to the night to act as the day becomes too dangerous.
The anarchist movement in Greece is among the largest in the world, proportionate to the population. However, we are now experiencing unprecedented repression as a result of the pandemic and resulting political opportunism. We remain stagnated in lockdown, overwhelmed by the reign of the right and its defenders. Ecocide, social control, new crackdowns on universities, and general repression of those excluded from or deemed enemies of the Greek state continue to expand in the shadow of COVID-19.
We will highlight a few recent incidents of concern relating to the solidarity efforts essential for the global anarchist movement. We sometimes struggle to write these updates, not wishing to simply present a monthly bulletin on depression from Greece. We write from a perspective that many people here share, best summarized by this comment that captures the theme of so many interactions here: “Some days good, some days bad. Just feel stuck, and not even sure what I’m waiting for.”
During this enforced pause in our lives, those who hold power are rushing through policies and automation disguised as pandemic response. This is part of a broader effort to gentrify Greek society. [Read More]

Ljubljana: Autonomous factory Rog evicted

Ljubljana. Slovenia. January 19. 2021. In the early morning hours riot cops showed up at the autonomous factory Rog. They started to evict the squatted facilities without an announcement and without a legal basis.

In 2002 the Municipality of Ljubljana bought the 7,000 square-metres complex with several buildings in “downtown” Ljubljana but never used it. The former bicyle factory was occupied in 2006 and since then it was used as an autonomous social center.

This morning Valina secutity arrived at 07:00am and started to evict the Rog and injured several people during the eviction. The cops started to install fences around the Rog and started to beat people in front of the premises. At least nine people were arrested. Three injured people had to be treated in a hospital.
[Read More]

Brussels: new occupation of empty building

As of Friday, January 15, 6,936 square meters formerly used by Opel – located at 552 chaussée de Gand in Molenbeek – are occupied to rehouse some of the 200 people about to be evicted from their homes in Jette. The opening of this new squat in Molenbeek follows the opening of the Hospitalière, a former clinic in Saint-Gilles that has become home to 80 people since December 18. This action announces the launch of a campaign of “solidarity occupations”.

As collectives and associations of people with and without papers, actors of the right to housing, inhabitants of Brussels, we are organizing ourselves once again with our means to enforce the right to housing and to demand the regularization of undocumented migrants.

We will continue to open and occupy empty buildings as long as the public authorities do not provide sufficient structural responses to the social and health crisis. By launching this campaign, we affirm that we are determined to organize ourselves in the face of the absurdity of thousands of empty buildings while hundreds of people sleep outside in our city. The opening of about ten squats has made it possible to house several hundred people during the spring 2020 confinement. Today, we want to make this solidarity and self-organized response visible, while refuting the idea that this is a structural and sufficient solution. It is up to the public authorities to make it a priority. [Read More]

Slovenia: statement by the Ljubljana Anarchist Initiative in support of autonomous spaces and Radio Študent

Three pillars of autonomous, alternative culture and politics in Ljubljana.

The anarchist movement in Ljubljana has been actively involved in the co-creation of the alternative scene for more than ten years. This includes the Autonomous Cultural Centre Metelkova, the Rog Autonomous Factory and Radio Študent. In a time of neoliberal devastation of the communal, the public and the non-commercial, these spaces represent the rare bright spots that make life in an otherwise increasingly gentrified Ljubljana more bearable, which is why many people have not yet moved out. [Read More]

Poland: Nora 219Ⓐ Manifesto

We are a family group of Wolfens, that is a grassroot movement for the protection of the Carpathian Forest. We operate as an intersectional collective. We make decisions by consensus. We believe that we can function as we would like the world to function: without hierarchy, human domination over other beings, patriarchy, queerphobia and fascism. With radical empathy and care.
We do not agree to the devastation of wildlife and the exploitation of valuable forests as wood inventories. Bieszczady forests are an extremely complex, sensitive ecosystem that performs many very important functions. These forests are soil and water-protective, therefore the amount of water in the country depends on their condition. This is where the most rain and snow falls. Mountain streams feed rivers and the excess water is stored by the forest. Forests, especially the old, natural ones, play a key role in climate protection.
If they continue to be massively cut, the soil crushed with heavy equipment, and the deep ruts of skid roads continue to run a sea of ​​mud into mountain streams, we have no chance in the fight against drought in the country, floods, not to mention the climate disaster. Meanwhile, the State Forests institution consistently implement a plan to destroy forests in areas that could be included in national parks or where reserves are designed, so as to diminish their natural value, so that there are no longer grounds for protecting them.
We believe that it is our moral duty to fight to defend our common good, and in the face of planned logging in one of the most valuable areas of mountain forests in Poland, we feel that the only way left is to block them directly. In order for us to succeed, we need financial support to cover logistics costs, purchase materials for building houses, climbing equipment, and provide legal support.
[Read More]

Saint Nazaire (France): Another eviction

After having evicted us from the various places where we tried to find shelter, they even came to evict us from a parking lot, no negotiations possible, no additional time. The places must be free as soon as possible.

Collectif Geronimo

Poland: New forest occupation

At the beginning of the Carpathians, where the area is still only hilly and where wolves, bears and lynxes live freely, wood is being cut because a piece of virgin forest was not classified as a national park. It planned to become one, in the fifties. Now it is not even nature reserve. This year it is planned to take 30% of the trees from the forest, all the big ones that are not declared as natural monuments. The job of cutting tree is apparently not even profitable: the two local forest management companies have received more than ~30 million euros in the last 8 years because of deficit. 3 times more than the 23 national parks of Poland.
A big part of the forest has never been attacked: it is on the slope and before, it was too difficult to go there with machines. In other words, it is a virgin forest located right next to a national park. If roads are built now to get to the wood, it is not only bad for the groundwater (the water then flows down the roads and is no longer “caught” in the forest), but also for the bears, which have build their sleeping places at least 2 km away from the roads. Many endangered species of lichen and moss live there, as well as protected woodpeckers and owls.
So on January 3, activists moved in to block the access road. With two skypods, the Wilczyce (female wolves) protect the forest on site, because petitions and blockades of the forest management company were not enough. Everyone is invited to join the protest.

The occupation is called Nora 219Ⓐ. Nora is the polish word for wolf’s burrow and 219a is the number the forest management compagny gave the piece of forest.

Website: nora219a.blackblogs.org
Twitter: @nora219a
Instagram: kolektyw.wilczyce
Email: wilczyce [at] riseup [dot] net

If you send us an email, we can help you to find public transport, because their websites can be complicated.
The exact location of the occupation is 49.12642° N, 22.71411° E, two kilometers straight on the way from the Bison Park Pokazowa zagroda żubrów w Mucznem.

Via Hambach Forest

Ile-Saint-Denis (France): The Pavillon Solidaire, solidarity with refugees

Solidarity, not just a word

What do you see when you take a walk around L’Ile Saint Denis – along the river banks, under the bridges, through the squares, the park? Everywhere desperate people hiding in tents, in flimsy constructions of plastic and wood, in the bushes, in any hole they can find. Hiding from the freezing cold, and hiding from the police with their batons, dogs and choking gas.

Over the weeks before the occupation we checked inside the Pavillon Solidaire several times, we wanted to be completely sure no one was using it. What did we find? The doors left open, rubbish piled up, mould growing everywhere, building work unfinished, foul stench of food left to rot, the garden clogged up with leaves, the building literally rotting.

These days it’s a cliché to say we’re living in scenes from a zombie movie. But that’s just what it seemed like, an abandoned house whose inhabitants have fled the apocalypse. A house that could provide a shelter from the cold and fear outside – at least for a few people, at least for a little while. [Read More]