Berlin: 30 years Liebig 34 – We never stop!

The Liebig 34 will celebrate its 30th birthday at the beginning of July. Eviction titles, media hype and annoying cops don’t spoil these days. Viva la Liebig!
Thirty years ago, after the fall of the Wall, people from a wide variety of backgrounds flocked to East Berlin to take advantage of the chance offered by the unresolved chains of command and the unspeakable vacancy. Entire streets and blocks of houses were occupied, redesigned and filled with ideas and creativity. The streets of Friedrichshain were full of life and very practical solidarity. At one corner there was a discussion meeting, in the next open-air cinema and there food was cooked for the whole street.
In these hours also lies the origin of our collective, which entered the rooms of Liebigstraße 34 in July 1990 and thus made the beginning of this project. In the following years a lot changed: the squat became a feminist house project without cis men. Through hard work and years of struggle it was tried to create a shelter and to offer an alternative to the cis-sexist everyday life.
Now, 30 years later, is the project to end? [Read More]

Wassenaar: Ivicke’s Zoning Plan, a Monumental Fuck Up

Enforcement of a zoning plan would suggest there is a plan. There isn’t.

The municipality of Wassenaar has decided to pursue our eviction from Huize Ivicke on the basis of the building’s zoning plan which designates its function as an office, not a residence.

Their reasoning for the decision appears to be that ‘Kantoor Ivicke’ must become ‘uninhabited’ once again in order to be ‘presentable.’ Strange, since we all seem to recall that Ivicke being uninhabited is what led to it becoming unpresentable in the first place.

The fact that it is a house, that it has largely been used as a house, that anti-squat guardians lived at Ivicke for several years under the current owner’s watch, and that many thousands of people are living “illegally” in non-residential (and often state-owned) buildings as anti-squat guardians across the country is apparently irrelevant.

The normalization of actual offices and other business premises as anti-squat housing – operating in a ‘legal grey zone’ – demonstrates that Ivicke’s designation as an office is incidental; a handy bureaucratic tool the municipality can choose to use or disregard, depending on their interests at any given time. [Read More]

Philadelphia: Report On Attempted Occupation Of Hahnemann Hospital

On Saturday, June 27th, Health-Care Workers And Community Members In Philadelphia Put Up Barricades And Attempted To Occupy The Entrance To The Shuttered Hahnemann Hospital.

For a brief moment on Saturday, nurses, patients and community members seized a shuttered hospital in Philadelphia and turned it over to the people to use as a clinic. Following a rally at the City Hall, a crowd of around 100 people marched north to the empty hospital tower, erected canopies, tables, and chairs, and began to attend to patients who had joined the march and were eager to receive care. They were the first people to be treated at the hospital since the pandemic began, during which the absentee owner kept its doors shut to the city in the hopes of forcing the city to pay a ransom.
[Read More]

Madrid: The High Court of Justice rules that the eviction of La Ingobernable was illegal

The Madrid High Court of Justice (TSJM) ruled on two appeals filed by La Ingobernable in June and November 2019, confirming that the Madrid City Council did not have the legitimacy to carry out the eviction but claiming that “the damages are not irreparable”.

Bitter victory for Madrid’s neighbours. Justice agrees with La Ingobernable and shows how partisan interests are above legality and the common good. The TSJM ruled in favour of the Social Centre La Ingobernable, arguing that “the Madrid City Council lacks legitimacy” over the eviction that took place on 13 November 2019 in Calle Gobernador 39.

La Ingobernable denounced that “the City Council did not have the legitimacy to initiate and process the eviction process because there was a current assignment to the Ambasz Foundation and in any case they should have initiated the procedure through criminal law” explains Naomi Abad, lawyer from Red Jurídica who filed the appeal with the TSJM in June 2019. “The administration was perfectly aware that they did not have the legitimacy to do so and yet they ordered the eviction procedure. [Read More]

Caen: eviction of the squat of the former Guy Liar College in Mondeville

On Wednesday 24th June, from 6am, the Calvados prefecture evicted a squat in Mondeville, the former Guy Liard college on rue Albert Bayet at the request of the owner, the departmental council and with the agreement of the town hall of Mondeville. Four families were housed in four former staff housing units, two other families and single people had been living in a former administrative building since January 4th. A total of about 40 people, including about 15 children, were evicted this morning. The Prefecture communicated as early as 6.15 am on social networks, proposing a solution of one week’s re-housing in a hotel after studying the individual situations, and it “will invite foreign nationals in an irregular situation to leave the national territory”! This means that families will either be placed under house arrest at the hotel (daily judicial control at the police station, obligation to be present at the hotel from 6pm to 9pm…), or deported to the CRA (Administrative Detention Centre) in Oissel near Rouen (the one in Rennes is closed and will reopen on 30 June) awaiting a hypothetical deportation.

As part of the state of health emergency, the winter truce has been extended until July 10th. This measure applies to all the squats under the jurisdiction of the Tribunal d’Instance (ten out of twelve squats currently). This squat was evictable since February 21st by decision of the Administrative Court, therefore it could not benefit from the winter truce from a legal point of view. Nevertheless, given the current circumstances, it is perfectly scandalous to throw dozens of people out on the street after a week of rehousing in a hotel or to consider their eviction in some cases. [Read More]

Notre-Dame-des-Landes: eviction alert on the ZAD

Eviction alert on the ZAD in Notre-Dame-des-Landes… the bailiff who had come (alone) to note the occupation of La Chèvrerie (for 2 years) about ten days ago, returned yesterday around 8am accompanied by 3 gendarmes in camouflage to signify the imminent eviction, at the request of the municipality of Vigneux de Bretagne.
Other places and huts can be evicted in the area, we invite all those who wish to join us in these last squats.
Sleepings, huts and camping areas are at your disposal to spend “active holidays” (or not) for free and without sanitary constraints…

Welcome! [Read More]

Zürich: Juch resists! New occupations

This evening June 20th, Grimselstrasse 18 and 20, Saumackerstrasse 67 and 69 have been squatted. The squatters* took these spaces in response to the Juch eviction on 23rd May.

If you evict one space, we* will open a new one!

Exactly one month ago today, the Social Department of the City of Zurich filed a criminal complaint and subsequently had the Juch area evicted by a large contingent of the Zurich City Police. This is only because the neighboring stadium construction site of HRS Real Estate seems to need more space to turn its trucks around and thus expand its empire as quickly and profitably as possible on behalf of the city. Marco Cortesi (spokesperson for the Zurich city police) also stressed in an interview in front of the freshly evicted area that the main thing now was to immediately make the area uninhabitable and then guard it with private security forces. Even the left-wing parties of the city of Zurich complain that it is extremely questionable and inappropriate to destroy residential and cultural spaces for a building site installation, and wrote in a jointly published media release: “For us it is clear: the demolition of buildings for the use of an area as parking space is unacceptable. Although no meaningful use was promised and a shady deal between the city of Zurich and HRS was settled without any transparency, the squatters* had to leave the Juch area. It cannot be said often enough: This is outrageous from the city of Zurich! We are furious! [Read More]

Rome: About operation Bialystok

Communiqué from Bencivenga Occupato:

And again.

The umpteenth anti-anarchist repressive operation began at dawn on 12 June 2020, in the territories of the Italian, French and Spanish states. In grand style, wearing balaclavas and carrying weapons, the cops searched several houses, seized the usual equipment and arrested seven people, five of them are in jail and two under house arrest.

Nothing new under the starry sky.

The charges that the state moves against them are various, including the usual subversive conspiracy to commit terrorism as well as arson, incitement to commit crimes, etc…

Now, it is not important to stay behind their judicial loopholes, but it is necessary to reiterate that direct action, mutual support, rejection of all hierarchy and all authorities and that the practice of solidarity are an expression of our anarchic tension. [Read More]

Dijon: Land occupation on Avenue de Langres

Statement from the June 17 Collective – Land occupation in Dijon as part of the June 17 appeal against the repeated intoxication of the world!

Today wednesday June 17th 2020, despite the rain, we were nearly four hundred people to demonstrate from the Place de la République to the abandoned plot located at 63 avenue de Langres. Armed with spades and pitchforks, the participants were able to clear the land to make gardens, set up new meeting and breathing spaces in the heart of the neighbourhood, plant vegetables, debate the common future on this land and beyond, or share a meal.

This land is threatened by a real estate project carried by the council which, with a great deal of “greenwashing” communication, is trying to impose yet another useless urban plan. According to the INSEE, there are more than 6000 vacant homes in the commune of Dijon alone. Except for the municipality – which wants to grow at all costs to establish its status as a “metropolis” – for whom is it a priority to have more new housing? [Read More]

Bristol: Glenfrome Road eviction resistance report

This is a report from participants in the successful eviction resistance in Bristol on 13th June.

Soon after 6 in the morning around 30 bailiffs from GRC turned up at a site in St Werburgh’s with a JCB to do the dirty work of making people homeless. The people squatting the land and over 100 friends and supporters had other ideas. Here’s how it went.

Now as we all know, all bailiffs are total scum, but GRC bailiffs have a reputation for being the worst of the worst. They have repeatedly shown how they enjoy hurting people and mixing work with pleasure. There are undoubtedly far right thugs in their ranks, enthusiastically honouring the age old tradition of fascists doing the dirty work for the bosses and landlords.

On the other side stood people who had found their housing solution, living in vans and trucks on a large piece of disused land which had been empty for a decade or so. Travellers and van dwellers need safe sites and self organised housing makes even more sense during a pandemic. You’d think the same would be true of not evicting people during a dangerous virus outbreak, but when has what’s right ever mattered for the rule of property and the law that protects it? [Read More]

Strasbourg: La Pigeonne, feminist and queer squat

Why are we squatting?

We, women and queer people, feminists, precarious, exiled and marginalised on several levels, are occupying a building in Strasbourg that has been abandoned for several years. Since February 27th 2020, La Pigeonne has become a squat for housing and organization in a selected mix (without cisgender men*).
As women and queers, we are targets of physical, sexual, economic, social and administrative violence. We suffer more poverty and precariousness. We claim our unconditional right to have a roof over our heads. We find it aberrant to be on the street, to lack care or food while the wealthy one are wasting and continue to enrich themselves. Precariousness has never been a choice for anyone. It is the result of a political, organized and reaffirmed will of the dominant to maintain an exploitable class. Neither the institutions nor the bosses want our autonomy. On the contrary, they participate daily in our precariousness.
Therefore, our priorities are to protect ourselves, to build solidarity among ourselves, to denounce together a patriarchal society and an economic system that sacrifices the most vulnerable. For a social transformation and the emancipation of all women and queer people, we favour initiatives made by us and for us.
In the face of the incompetence of the state, the violence of its institutions, and its sexist, queerphobic and racist police repression that is increasingly violent and systematic, we organize ourselves. We are occupying the space we are being denied. [Read More]

Lyon: Trial of the Feyzin squat, call for support

Faced with the threats of evictions that are likely to follow one another at the end of the winter truce, let’s organize solidarity!
Squats and other informal housing are among the places most exposed to the risks linked to the health crisis. While during the confinement, the State and the Metropolis have hardly brought any help in these already precarious housing, the eviction procedures are starting again, and threaten to put on the street more than a thousand people in Lyon as soon as the winter truce ends (July 10).
On June 16, the former Georges Brassens school in Feyzin, now owned by Total, went on trial. Home to about 70 people, the school has been renovated and made liveable, and is now a place where its residents can live. Let’s come and support them in the face of threats of eviction to demand decent housing for all and to denounce the repressive and discriminatory policies of this government.
Meet on Tuesday 16 June at 9am in front of the court of first instance of Villeurbanne at 3 Rue Docteur Fleury Pierre Papillon for a breakfast of support. [Read More]