Hello everyone! We would like to inform you that we have today successfully squatted 6 houses in the Rudolf Dieselstraat. We also have good news: after five years and for the first time, we have opened an office at Rudolf Dieselstraat 6. You are welcome at the We Are Here Village, next to Frankendael, under the Ringdijk.
We are also looking for volunteers and home items such as blankets, furniture, mattresses and more.
Ymere, the owner from the whole Rudolf Dieselstraat, has neglected the street for many years and wants now to hand it over to Camelot, a property guardian company. Together with the renters still living there, we are going to make a nice village of the street.
According people living in the neighborhood, the houses would remain in this state until August. This is the perfect moment to make our own village. How are we going to achieve that? Let’s talk about it this afternoon at the squatted church, on the James Wattstraat 58. Come along! [Read More]
This morning at 07:10 the police and the IND raided a squat in the Schilderswijk to arrest our friend Ali.
In the early morning the dogs of the police and IND raided the house of our friend Ali because he supposedly does not possess the correct paperwork to remain in the country. About ten cops were ready with battering rams to break open the door, this was not necessary because Ali opened the door himself. He has been brought to the main police station.
According to his lawyer people are being deported back to Iraq since a short time. At this moment it is not clear if the deportation services (Dienst Terugkeer en Vertrek) have planned his deportation. His lawyer is checking on this. An update will be placed when more information is available. It is important to warn people you know from Iraq who do not have a permit to stay in the country about the situation.
We are angry that our friend Ali has been arrested. We are angry at the migrant hunters of the IND and the police. No attack will be left unanswered! [Read More]
Neighborhood letter
Dear neighbors,
We are your new neighbors living in Jordaan. We are group of four young people, who are not rich enough to be able to find a roof over our heads in what is fast becoming “Disneyland Amsterdam”.
We are here today to bring life to an unloved, derelict place. We intend to collectively renovate a space left to rot by the squander of a profit hungry corporation and transform it into a quiet, cosy home.
The property we are squatting has been empty for 2 years. Libra International BV, a real estate speculation company, is the owner. This company owns more than a thousand properties in the Netherlands and is well known to operate in the area “between illegal and legal”; they perform house-price raising “property swaps” between their numerous shell corporations; they deliberately render buildings unlivable and leave them empty, degrading, in order to speculate on the land value; they deliberately refrain from their duties as a landlord, withholding their obligated basic maintenance of properties as a means to pressure renters who get in the way of their plans to leave. They render homes into mere sums of money to speculate over, making the city unaffordable, and unlivable for common people. [Read More]
Refugee collective We Are Here has squatted a house at Rudolf Dieselstraat 72 for a woman and two children, together with people who now live under harsh circumstances in the church in the James Wattstraat.
After more than 5 years of fighting for a normal life, we know what it means to live on the street or to continuously move from one place to another. It means that you loose all the time, your life looses sense, you are affected. Six of us have already lost their life. The pressure is rising. A solution has to come now.
The women’s building on the Burgemeester Roëllstraat 70, where 25 women of We Are Here are living since a year and a half, can be evicted by the housing corporation from the 10th of April.
Most political parties have agreed that no building of We Are Here will be evicted as long as they negotiate about the new board. We invite them to work together on a stable place and a real Amsterdam-style solution.
We are here and we need a place to live. [Read More]
24 of March, Saturday, 12:00 in Paidiki Hara, Koukaki we are calling comrades, friends, from Athens and all over Greece, all of ages, genders, persons who work, studying, or are unemployed, with animals, with their music instruments and their expression means, to walk together.
Almost a year ago, a new project bloomed in the neighborhood of Koukaki. We created a community of housing and struggling squats. We occupied three empty buildings which were getting rotten at Matrozou 45, Panaitoliou 21 and Arvali 3. We rebuilt them through a lot of work to become sustainable, to become places of gathering and communal organization. Some us them are living here permanently.
We are coming from different places of the planet, co-exist with dogs and cats, creating relations of solidarity and freedom. This community, as its buildings is opened to the people through discussions in public spaces, projections, music events, café-bar, presentations of theories, and games with children. We have create structures for common use like library-reading space, compost on the Filopappou hill, public bathroom-laundry and free shop to exchange clothes, laboratory of conserves production and urban gardening. From the very start, we knew that freedom can be claimed only through struggle. Our community is part of the anti-authoritarian/anarchist/libertarian movement and participates to the defending of the squats, in struggle against state repression, prisons and detention centers, against patriarchy, fascism, destruction of nature and stand in solidarity with migrants. [Read More]
Why protest?
Because the housing crisis can not be ignored. There are between 15,000 and 30,000 empty dwellings in Brussels, while there are around 4,000 homeless people. 40,000 families are on the waiting list for social housing, with waiting times varying between 8 and 12 years. Lastly, rents on the private market have steadily increased in recent years. As a result, households whose incomes do not exceed € 1500 have to average 60% of their budget to rent.
Because, in spite of this context, the government has passed an anti-squat law, which puts people in risks to go to jail for squatting empty houses to sleep in.
Because this law appears in a general movement of repression: the constant criminalization of the undocumented and the individuals who are in solidarity with them, the installation of surveillance cameras in the streets, the police and military presence in the public space are as much clues to a desire for global control.
Because applicable solutions exist (right of requisition, right of public management, …) or have been proposed incessantly by associations for the right to housing (consequent increase of the number of social housing, framing of the rents …).
The authorities refuse to apply them.
As for us, we continue to squat, we continue to protest!
For the demo to be enjoyable for all participants, take care of the ones and avoid unconscious or oppressive behaviors.
Wednesday 21 march,2018 – 18:00, Place Bara – Baraplein, Brussels
nonalaloiantisquat [at] riseup [dot] net
https://squ.at/r/4jg5
https://squatbelgium.noblogs.org/post/manif/
The former Iranian embassy in Bonn was recently squatted in solidarity
with political activism, feminist struggles and prisoner rights in Iran.
Unfortunately it has now been evicted. It was occupied on International
Women’s Day, Thursday March 8, and was raided by over one hundred riot
cops one week later.
Apparently the building no longer had special status since the embassy
had moved to Berlin and had been empty for twenty years since the
reunification of Germany. Mainstream media in Germany and Iran
(including the Tehran Times!) reported that four “opportunists” had been
removed and it was unclear if they would face any charges. You can read
the manifesto of the squatters on the Institut für Anarchismusforschung
blog below and follow them on twitter.
[Read More]
The Sanctuary occupied homeless camp on Ashley Road, east Bournemouth, was evicted yesterday {March13}, leaving rough sleepers struggling to find anywhere safe to stay or put their belongings.
The camp was the second set up by homeless people working with Occupy Bournemouth activists in the wake of a brutal New Year eviction of a site on Exeter Road, opposite the Bournemouth International Centre (BIC) in which bailiffs tore down and crushed people’s belongings despite freezing conditions. An Occupy activist said:
[Read More]
About our participation in the mass anti-nationalist demonstration in Salonika on the 10th of March 2018, in the clashes against the repressive forces of the state that followed, and in the attack against the Turkish consulate and the cops that guard it:
On the 10th of March 2018, we participated in a mass demonstration in the city of Salonika, responding to a call across Greece and the Balkans. On this day thousands of people came together on the streets with a common stance against fascism and nationalism. Every block in the demonstration lent a different focus to the manifestation. Some blocks expressed primarily their solidarity to Libertatia, the squat that was burned down by fascists during the recent nationalistic manifestations over the naming of a neighboring country. Others stressed nationalism and patriotism as foundations of the greek society. Others stressed patriarchy as a structural element of the nation-state. There was also internationalist presence from the Balkans. This mass demo was well and strongly guarded against possible police or fascist attacks. A big part of this gathering understood that the struggle against fascism is one and the same with the struggle against the state. [Read More]
You’re invited to an Intersquat Block at the Chaos and Discussion days in May in Berlin. We want to offer the space for an exchange on our tactics and techniques, discussions and information within the Chaos and Discussion days at Rigaerstrasse.
Structurally we don’t plan on this being an equal replacement for the past Intersquat meetings, unless you want to make it such. We do think this is a good opportunity to connect the general discussions on the sense and future of urban struggles with questions that come up when considering squatting as more than a tool to satisfy basic housing needs. We hope for a discussion on the importance of squatting for other liberatory struggles, houses as political tools, questions on working within and with neighbourhoods and more.
Evictions, Repression, Surveillance, Prisons, the maggots using and supporting oppressive structures are everywhere let’s get together to support each other and smash the ball not just into their court but through its heart. [Read More]
Following the evictions from the Censive building and from the Château du Tertre, that saw more than 150 people thrown out, a new occupation followed the day after at the 9 rue Maurice Sibille. Help us to move in, call for solidarity.
On Thursday march 8th in the morning, the former EPHAD, an empty retirement home, a six story building on rue Maurice Sibille, has been occupied by refugees and their supporters. Around 12:00, riot cops came and pushed away the people gathered in the street, aiming at people with their rubber bullet guns. They tried to break into the building but failed. They used gas through an opening. One person would have been arrested. Some local politicians and unions members were around to show support to the refugees. After several hours of tension, riot cops left, followed by an explosion of joy. People in state of euphoria went in and visited this huge empty building. The space is in good state with water and electricity, perfect to host people in shared rooms, with individual kitchens and toilets, big common spaces, a professional kitchen, etc… [Read More]
