Athens: Matrozou 45 and Panaitoliou 21 resquatted et again evicted

By: fawda - January 12th, 2020  Filed under: News

We are tearing down walls for freedom

The recapture of Matrozou 45 and Panaitoliou 21 is an act against the fear imposed by state repression. It is a signal of resistance and a rallying cry for escalation. Let us not leave our neighborhoods and nature in the heat of development plunder. Do not accept the displacement of our lives. Keep the parks, squares and hills free. Let us oppose the mercenaries of the state. Let us intensify the struggles against the exploitation of labor. Let us completely take up the struggle for survival and freedom. The struggle is neither legal nor illegal.

Together with dozens of anarchist / antisocial companions, we are taking back the community’s homes in order to meet housing needs that would not have been possible without this occupation, to re-open solidarity structures and re-establish free-living relationships without hierarchy, reopen homes in the neighborhood and in the movement with events, celebrations and organization. [Read More]

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Greece: Repression, eviction and dispossession in New Democracy’s Greece

By: fawda - January 8th, 2020  Filed under: News

The latest attack on the squatting movement in Greece is the preamble for a massive operation of housing dispossession by the right-wing government.

Dimitris Indares was still in his pyjamas when the police knocked on his door in the neighborhood of Koukaki, in Athens, in the early hours of Wednesday, December 18. Not long after that, he was lying down on the floor of his home’s terrace, with a Special Operations policeman’s boot on his head. He and his two adult sons were beaten up, handcuffed, blindfolded and taken under police custody. What was Indares’ crime? He had refused to let the police go through his home without a warrant in its operation to evict the squat that was right next door. [Read More]

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SqEK (Squatting Everywhere Kollective) is dead

By: sisulscz - January 7th, 2020  Filed under: essay

Well, well, WELL. Here we are, it’s been the best part of a decade and now
SqEK is dead. I have mostly enjoyed my time being part of Squatting
Everywhere Kollective (SqEK) ever since I popped up at the London 2010
meeting, having seen a post on Indymedia UK (RiP). On the whole, being a
member of the collective has been a productive and inspiring time. I have
written a few book chapters and journal articles about squatting, a couple
in collaboration with people, and none of these things would have happened
if I hadn’t got off my arse and taken that train up to London.

The annual conferences have been an amazing opportunity to engage with local
squatter and radical leftwing movements in places like Barcelona, Berlin,
Catania, Copenhagen, Paris, Prague and Rome. Disparagingly described by
someone leaving the collective back then as “just people meeting up to go
visit various squats,” these meetings have actually been amazingly fertile
encounters between us as SqEK and social centre participants in places like
Klinika (Prague, recently evicted), Can Mas Deu (Barcelona), New Yorck im Bethanianen (Berlin), Candy Factory and Trampoline House (Copenhagen), Poortgebouw (Rotterdam), Studentato Occupato (Catania), La Gare XP and Transfo (Paris).
[Read More]

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Athens: Counterculture events on Exarchia square

By: fawda - December 28th, 2019  Filed under: Communique, News

On Sunday, December 22nd, we organised a day-long event at Exarchia square, in answer to the pre-announced municipal event–front for oppression that was to take place at noon of the same day.

The municipality of Athens under Bakoyannis plays a central part in selling out our neighbourhoods and answers every attempt of resistance with more and more repression. In Exarchia, it tries to camouflage the repression and gentrification of the neighbourhood that translates into shops, the metro, raises in rent, a sterilised and controlled environment, with superficial events and actions accompanied by the media twisting the story and armed goons. It wants to impose its superiority by cleaning the square, where it removes our posters and our speech from the neighbourhood and as a symbol of its domination it pins down a tree, like in a conquered space. We view this event as one more aggressive act of political and cultural distortion of the ground of Exarchia, one that we had to answer by cancelling it through our active presence throughout the day. We couldn’t allow this fiesta of hypocrisy, where there wouldn’t have been space for us, anyway. [Read More]

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Brighton: Squatted Night Shelter

By: sisulscz - December 28th, 2019  Filed under: Communique

As Brighton becomes more glamorous and sparkles in the shop windows cost like gold, the city is only managing to house the rich and the privileged. There are too many buildings on our streets which have been left empty, dilapidating and neglected by selfish landlords who are apparently blind to the hundreds of people sleeping in bags outside of these doorsteps. Brighton has the second worst amount of homeless to London, and the council cannot seem to do anything about it.
We have scrubbed up + loved up one of these empty buildings to make an emergency shelter for people who would otherwise sleep outside. There is room for 10 people to stay at night and downstairs there is a soup kitchen!
Please spread the word about the space to friends seeking shelter.
Any donations will be accepted gratefully, and here are some photos of the accommodation.

Facebook – DIY Kodak Collective: Squatted Night Shelter

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Helsinki: Eviction at squat Kattila!

By: fawda - December 27th, 2019  Filed under: News

This morning around 9am police invaded squat Kattila. Many comrades were arrested at the house. Most were already released before noon, but one comrade is still in custody.

This attack against free spaces – committed by the police as soon as they got over their overfilled stomaches from christmas – reveals that the state doesn’t care about “christmas peace” or it’s declarations. We don’t care about christian social peace either, but at least we don’t hypocritically pretend to do so.

All kinds of solidarity are warmly welcome! [Read More]

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Greece: Merry Crisis and a Happy New Fear

By: fawda - December 26th, 2019  Filed under: News

Repression and resistance in Greece, december 2019.

Continuing our coverage of the struggle in Greece between the new repressive New Democracy government and the longstanding anarchist movement, we present the following report, drawing on eyewitness accounts from street mobilizations and the defense of several squats. The Greek state continues to throw its full weight behind an all-out assault on refugees, anarchists, and student movements, encouraging gratuitous police brutality against both human beings and their animal companions while seeking to exonerate right-wing murderers including members of the Neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn who faced conspiracy charges in the murder of Pavlos Fyssas and the police officer who murdered the 15-year-old anarchist Alexis Grigoropoulos 11 years ago this month.

We hope to inspire international solidarity actions with the movement in Greece and to equip readers for action and analysis in other contexts in an era in which state violence and grassroots resistance are escalating worldwide. The struggle continues. [Read More]

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Athens: Refugees return back the lost European Values for Christmas!

By: fawda - December 25th, 2019  Filed under: Communique, News

In the afternoon of the 24th of December, the community of the refugee housing squat Notara26 moved along towards the Christmas tree in Syntagma square in order to bring back the European values to the European people. 18 big parcels according to the 18 articles of the European convention of human rights were brought to the Christmas tree to remind what is written on paper. In contrast there were pictures how this ‘rights’ function in reality. In their statement the European states claim to honor these values, but the people are wondering where to find them.

“We are not three and we are not kings and we didn’t come to iconize a new born person. We are thousands, we refuse kingdoms and idols, and we are craving for a society with respect and equal rights for everybody. Even if we are coming from same regions than the mythological three guys 2019 years ago, the reasons for our journeys are totally different. We escaped wars, authoritarian dictatorships, torture, ethnic or gender-based discrimination and famine. We came here in order to find worth living conditions. [Read More]

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Athens: Banner at Patissia, ‘Hands off of squats & migrants!’

By: fawda - December 25th, 2019  Filed under: Communique, News

From Marousi to Koukaki and from Exarchia to Kipseli and Patissia, the seeds of another world have already been sowed. A world against misery, exploitation, wage slavery, property and selfishness. And these seeds grow with blood instead of water, and with violence instead of sun. The more blood is spilled, the more fed are the seeds, and the more violence is used against the bodies of the damned ones, the more grown are the flowers of resistance. Every closed squat, every manhunt and beating against our bodies, makes us stubborn and more powerful.

On 23/12 we hung a banner at the basketball courts of Fitefti, in Kato Patissia neighbourhood, writing: “Hands off of squats & migrants – Antiauthoritarian, solidarian & self organized communities in every neighbourhood”. [Read More]

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Manchester: New shelter squatted

By: sisulscz - December 24th, 2019  Filed under: Announcement, Communique

Update from Manchester Winter Shelter: We have secured a new space that we hope to keep over the xmas period. We are now open for homeless folk.

If you are part of a homeless organisation/ outreach or hosting a xmas dinner please point people with no where to stay to us if they need it. We need people with cars who are available to collect people. Please message us if this is something you’re able to help with.

*We are still not able to take any donations due to the huge amount we have recieved*
Many, many thanks.
[Read More]

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Athens: Villa Kouvelou resquatted

By: fawda - December 23rd, 2019  Filed under: News

Today 22 december, Villa Kouvelou was resquatted with a lot of people. We left organized, we decided to make a demonstration in the streets of Marousi and at the shopping center in Marousi. After the demonstration, cops from OPKE and riot cops from MAT attacked without reason. They threw tear gas on the people doing their shopping at the shopping center. Most of the people left all together but there is no image nor picture of this moment.
More news will follow with a full translation of this communique.

The fire we started will never stop
Villa Kouvelou remains squatted [Read More]

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Berlin: Greek consulate occupied – Solidarity with the squats in Greece

By: sisulscz - December 23rd, 2019  Filed under: Communique

Since the July 15, 2019 a wave of repression against the squatted spaces in Greece has been in full force.. Therefore today on December 23, 2019, the symbolic action or rather the occupation of the Greek consulate in Berlin-Mitte (city centre of Berlin, Enough 14), took place as a direct solidarity action.
On November 20, 2019 the Greek Minister for Public Order, Chrisochoidis M., issued a 15 day ultimatum against the autonomous scene, with the option to leave the buildings and houses or sign a contract with the owners.

After the ultimatum expired, the first four evictions occurred within a few days in the Attica metropolitan area.. In the time before that, the following happened: 15 occupied spaces or self-managed house projects were violently evicted, the police invaded the autonomous Info space of the ASOEE (University of Economics)., the parliamentary majority abolished the right of asylum on university campuses, criminal law is being tightened, people have been brutally beaten up, sexist assaulted on a daily basis and in revenge for imprisoned for political or ideological reasons (the case of Kortesis Ch., with Leroy Merlin), Reports were constructed by the police (case of V. Stathopoulos) and migrants or fugitives were secretly transported from the city centre to the deportation prisons.
[Read More]

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