Spanish State: Occupation, the ghost of the table

By: fawda - September 28th, 2020  Filed under: News

“I’m not sure what the fatal secret is”, Mathilde in The Castle of Otranto.

The recent media campaign against the occupation of homes was not the first, but one of the most intense in recent times. Its launch, on the eve of a probable intensification of the housing conflict, does not seem to be coincidental. The economic and health crisis has put the sectors involved on alert, and this seems to be a first move on one side. This campaign is beginning to have answers, especially in the form of articles and social networks. In these responses, it has been denounced that the phenomenon of home occupation is less widespread than the media suggests with an alarmist tone. The data and statistics reinforce this denunciation. Moreover, it has been rightly criticised that squatting is being deliberately confused with breaking and entering. Finally, an attempt has been made to refocus the debate on the problem of access to housing, which is the primary cause of property occupation.

The tense situation of calm that we are experiencing seems to be the prelude to greater social conflict, also around the issue we are dealing with. That is why defensive responses are essential, but it would be better to try to go a little further and take the initiative in the conflict, for which it may be useful to examine less visible or less explored aspects. Moreover, when faced with campaigns of this kind, data and statistics are often only half useful, because the issue here is whether or not occupying homes and premises is legitimate. [Read More]

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Thessaloniki: The Struggle Through the Eyes of Terra Incognita Squat

By: fawda - September 28th, 2020  Filed under: Interviews, News

This interview with members of Terra Incognita Squat reaches us by submission. The squat was invaded by the police on August 17, 2020, equipment confiscated, and the squat sealed off. Comrades issued a call for international support. This interview goes into further detail about the work and political objectives of the nearly two decade project.

Question: What is the goal of Terra Incognita squat? When did it establish its presence?

Answer: Comrades, greeting from the distant grounds of the western metropolitan areas. 17 years ago, our squat and political assembly found their roots in the results of the anti-globalization movement with the demonstration against the session of G7 during the summer of 2003 and the defense of the 7 arrested comrades after the events of the anti-session. The positive results of the struggle for the release of the arrested revolutionaries finds the anarchist movement of Thessaloniki in a moment of peak which seeks the territorialization of our anarchist ideology through the creation of stable reference points of expressing and referring to radical perceptions and choices of fighting against the state and the capital. Terra Incognita is the result of the need for a stable center of organising and supporting the struggle with all means, a choice that we would like to believe was consistently supported during these 17 years. [Read More]

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London: Eviction resisted, we’d rather be squatters than scabs

By: sisulscz - September 27th, 2020  Filed under: Communique

On Thursday 24th September in Greenwich, London, an illegal eviction attempt on a squatted building was thwarted by a combination of self-organised defence and bloody minded stubbornness.

At 6.30am, high court enforcement agents in black masks used heavy tools to cut the locks on the gate and attempted to force entry into the building using threats of physical violence. The occupiers managed to hold the door, and by 8.30am a crowd of around 30 members of London’s autonomous community had gathered to support them as they besieged people inside. The defenders travelled from across the city in support, including members of the newly energised Eviction Resistance Network, a gang from militant trans activists NFA Queer Punx, and legal support from the Advisory Service for Squatters.

Spirits remained high as the crowd dominated the car park area in front of the building, gradually managing to squeeze the bailiffs and their hired goons back with a consistent tirade of obstinant resistance. The crowd sang “Well I’d rather be a squatter than a scab!”, and one activist was able to begin deliveries of food and toilet paper to those locked inside via the scaffolding.
[Read More]

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Uppsala: Callout from Blodstensskogen

By: sisulscz - September 27th, 2020  Filed under: Communique

About a year ago, the forest-occupation project in Uppsala started [previously on S!N] after the municipality officially decided to clear a more than 200-year-old forest in order to build expensive high-rise buildings in its place.

The forest, Blodstensskogen, is located between two nature reserves and thus serves as a corridor for the many forest animals to move around. At the same time, Blodstensskogen has developed a strong and diverse ecosystem through its long existence. For example, there are deciduous trees and fir trees that are over a hundred years old, and it is home to many animals, including those that are protected (Red Listed Animals: different insects such as the longhorn beetle, musk longhorn beetle, scarlet fungus beetle, birds such as the black woodpecker and the crested tit, fungi such as the pine fire sponge, irpicodon pendulus, resupinate spurge and the beautiful earth stars, as well as three different species of bats that use the Blodstensskogen as hunting grounds and for reproduction).
[Read More]

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Montpellier: the police evict a squat in rue Triolet, eight families with young children find themselves without solution

By: fawda - September 25th, 2020  Filed under: News

On the morning of Friday, September 25th, the police evicted a squat in Montpellier, leaving about thirty people without a solution, half of them children.

Eight families, including some with young children, lived in this squat on rue Triolet, which was opened under tension a year ago, in particular to accommodate migrants. No arrests were made. Private security will remain night and day for two weeks in front of the building, and should allow the evicted people to recover their belongings – although it is still necessary to know where to put them. The network of solidarity has allowed the families to find a place to stay for a few days, but nothing stable. Some children who left this morning for school will bitterly discover this afternoon that they no longer have a home. A construction company is on site to seal the entrances, the toilets have already been broken.

This eviction is part of an offensive against squats. At the end of August, the media repeated over and over again the story of a couple from Lyon, distraught by the occupation of their second home by a family. One commentator after another expressed indignation at the plight of the owners and protested against allegedly lax legislation. On September 16th 2020, the deputies voted an amendment allowing the rapid eviction of squats, left to the decision of the prefect, without a court decision, even after forty-eight hours of occupation. A call for mobilization is circulating to recall the obvious: squatting in an abandoned building for housing and escaping the hell of the street is absolutely legitimate. [Read More]

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Berlin: Interview with Liebig34 as it resists eviction

By: fawda - September 25th, 2020  Filed under: Interviews, News

The anticapitalist struggle is an intersectional one. Liebig34 provides a perfect example. In their fight against housing being a commodity, capitalism and patriarchy, they have been a symbol for radical queer feminism for 30 years. Now, the project is faced with the threat of eviction. Being the valuable and inspiring project that Liebig34 has been, it cannot be taken away. Liebig34 stays! This interview serves to provide an insight into the immense value of Liebig34 and hopes to encourage action and solidarity.

What is the origin story of Liebig34, what is it, and what are it’s main principles, values, and goals? What have been some of the biggest changes in the last 30 years? And what has kept Liebig alive and active for all this time?

Liebig was originally squatted on June 30th, 1990, the summer after the fall of the Berlin wall, where many buildings were left empty. The house sits on the corner of Rigaer Straße, a place particularly known for its squatting history. [Read More]

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Saint-Étienne: imminent eviction of the squat of the post office of Solaure

By: fawda - September 25th, 2020  Filed under: News

On Tuesday September 22nd, a new judgment was handed down at the Administrative Court of Lyon. Even if there are few evidence, the City of Saint-Etienne is claiming a housing project with a ground-floor business carried by Inovy, a project carrying company. The court handed down its decision on Thursday September 24 with the order to leave the premises and the possibility of immediate eviction by the police. The residents are, as of today, in permanent risk of being thrown out onto the street without accommodation.

About forty people are currently living in the squat of the former post office, including school children, people in poor health and people undergoing training. A majority are in the process of applying for asylum. The mayor of Saint-Etienne and his team, in response to questions put to the municipal council on 21/09/2020 , have again and again abdicated their responsibilities on the back of the State and have taken it upon themselves to throw the inhabitants of the former post office out onto the streets. [Read More]

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Athens: Notara 26, five years of solidarity and resistance

By: fawda - September 24th, 2020  Filed under: News

The story has been told many a times now. We have heard, witnessed, and lived it in the past five years. In 2015, with the onset of mass migration and what was called the “refugee crisis” we saw the political, social, and urban landscapes of many places change—including Athens, Greece. The events touched and affected the public and private lives of many. The beginning of Noara26 points to one of those moments. A time when a group of people, with ideals and politics of self-organization, collective action, and solidarity were moved to occupy an empty public building in the city’s downtown and to create a place of shelter and safety for thousands of refugees who were abandoned in the streets of Athens.

This September marks the fifth year of our squat’s existence. It is true that we can mark this date in our calendars and remember it as a day of creation and celebration. But the lessons we have learned, the joyful moments we have created, the memories and lives we have shared, the challenges and struggles we have faced and overcome as community are unmeasurable and exceed the limits of time. [Read More]

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Calais: the ban on distributing food to migrants is maintained. Mobilization on September 26th

By: fawda - September 23rd, 2020  Filed under: Communique, News

For the judge of the administrative court of Lille, 4 kms on foot to eat, that’s fine.

In an order dated September 22, the judge of the administrative court of Lille rejected the request made by 12 local and national associations to cancel the order of September 10, by which the prefect of Pas-de-Calais prohibited any free distribution of drinks and food in certain places in the city center of the municipality of Calais.

The judge stated that the distributions put in place by the State were allegedly sufficient to cover the needs of all exiled people present in Calais, including those sleeping in the city center, considering that “the circumstance that in order to access them, migrants settled in the city center since early August must travel three kilometers is not such as to characterize undignified living conditions”.

This assessment is particularly questionable. Indeed, the humanitarian indicators developed either by the UNHCR or within the framework of the SPHERE project, specify, for example, concerning drinking water, that it must be accessible at less than 500m from where people live – the distances in question being in this case between 4 and 5km, which represents an hour’s walk one way, and that it is necessary to go to two distributions per day. [Read More]

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France: an anti-squat amendment threatens untitled occupiers

By: fawda - September 22nd, 2020  Filed under: News

Update of September 17: The anti-squat amendment supported by the Government (Ministry of Housing) generalizing the administrative eviction (by decision of the prefect and without trial) of untitled occupants was adopted in the law committees of the National Assembly on Wednesday, September 16. This proposal is excessively dangerous, and the time frame is short, since the law in which the amendment will be inserted will be discussed in the National Assembly the week of September 28.

An amendment discussed this afternoon in committee extends the expulsion without trial.
To all untitled occupants!

The proposed amendment No. 695 of the ASAP bill, inserted after article 30 bis, of the rapporteur Mr. Guillaume Kasbarian, deputy LREM and supported by the Government, extends the administrative eviction (forced eviction by decision of the prefect and without judgment), within a few days and retroactively to all untitled occupants of housing, offices, premises and vacant land. [Read More]

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UK: Calvert Reserve Protection Camp getting evicted

By: sisulscz - September 22nd, 2020  Filed under: Communique

Rudely awoken this morning by NET 😞 Calvert is currently being evicted, support needed – Calvert Jubilee Nature Reserve, Buckingham, MK182HE

UPDATE – With a heavy heart I have to say that today we lost Calvert Jubilee Nature Reserve.
8 weeks ago we heard that HS2 were going to compulsory purchase the reserve and start destroying it to build an access road for the high speed rail line. We occupied the reserve, building homes and a community amongst locals and activists. We held the ground, held up HS2 and have helped inspire other people to stand up for their own beliefs.
We may have lost the reserve but there are positive ripple effects beyond our perceptions.
Today the fascists won but we aren’t done yet. We will be back at it at soon as tomorrow!
Thank you to everyone who has supported us this far. We could not have got this far without you and we will continue because of you.

Berkshire Buckinghamshire Oxfordshire Wildlife Trusts statement: “BBOWT is devastated that High Speed 2 Ltd have now taken legal possession of a large section of our Calvert Jubilee Nature Reserve.”

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Berlin: Call for demo against eviction of Liebig34 on October 3rd. Chaos instead of eviction

By: fawda - September 21st, 2020  Filed under: Communique, News

Demo October 3rd – Friedrichshain – 9pm

We are angry! Angry that Liebig34 is about to be taken away from us. Angry that every attempt at a self-determined life is being tried to be crushed. We are fed up with all the harassment by cops in the neighborhood and everywhere else. We are fed up with their repression, the state and its servants, who make it impossible for people to shape the city they live in. We shit on investors for whom Berlin is nothing more than a Monopoly board on which they can move their houses around. We don’t give a shit about the yuppies who, with their new buildings and condominiums, are displacing the people who spend their lives here, for whom the street and the Dorfplatz is more than just the way to the co-working space.
We demand a city from below. We want to occupy houses. We want to decide for ourselves how we want to live. [Read More]

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