In the early morning of the 6th of March, residents of the Tweebosbuurt in Rotterdam were shaken awake by police forces. The entire neighbourhood was locked down for a militarized eviction of 6 squats. 6 houses of which the residents were put on the street with their right to a home.
Beyond these symbolic houses, which brought some life back into the emptying neighbourhood, it’s all residents of the Tweebosbuurt that are the target here. Since several months, life in the area has turned into a more joyful reality again, in which residents’ resignation in the face of the demolition of their neighbourhood was seeping away. The authorities have thus decided to destroy these sparkles of hope: no squats, no solidarity, no joy, no hope.
But let them know that the destruction of our living spaces will not suppress our desire for freedom.
Squatting goes on. [Read More]
Rotterdam : 6 squats evicted in the Tweebosbuurt
Samone di Guiglia (Modena): Eviction of an anarchist squat and arrests
On 28th February a group of people occupied a country house in the Samone countryside, in the province of Modena. There was no welcoming, already in the early afternoon cops, firemen and ROS threatened the eviction. Some went up on the roof and others barricaded themselves in the house, resisting the constant pressure and insistent threats, until the shits went away. The following day they came back calling all their friends over. They managed to storm the house beating and hitting with truncheons. Meantime some of the squatters went up the roof. Ten people were taken to the prison in Modena and arrested on charges of resistance, violence and insulting, some were handcuffed. Five squatters resisted on the roof for eight hours, they took it well in spite of the cold and the Apennine landscape obfuscated by the shits in uniform threatening to arrest everybody as soon as they came down. After they were granted permission to take their personal belongings they came down from the roof. As soon as they got down, however, they were taken to police headquarters in Sassuolo to be charged but once there they were photographed and fingerprinted. After the usual, long disgusting hours waiting, the noise made by people in solidarity at the gates made the cops release the five – not before physical and verbal threats to them, even before there were any charges for resistance, occupation and trespassing. [Read More]
Zwolle: 17 squatters arrested
Sunday night March 8th (technically Monday morning March 9th) 17 squatters were arrested in Zwolle, Netherlands.
The building was occupied by squatters after 5 years of vacancy. Unfortunately the police got wind of the situation and after a while they were at the door with all their might and power. Not soon after the police entered and the squatters were summoned to get down on their knees, with hands on their heads. The squatters were handcuffed and taken to the police station, where they were all detained for more than 16 hours. During the arrest, breaking tools were also found by the police.
All squatters are now free. They have all received a fine (€225) for trespassing, which is a strange situation for people who are homeless or barely able to pay their rent. During the arrest the squatters were not given the opportunity to pack their belongings, these things are still in the building.
After Sunday night there are two losers and only one winner: The police had to use violence and some of the squatters are still homeless. The winner is Janssen Vastgoed: his building (one of many vacant premises) is still empty and as far as we know the company is not being bothered by the municipality. [Read More]
Rotterdam: Illegal eviction of Tweebosstraat 120
On the 26th of February, employees of Vestia came to the door of a squat on Tweebosstraat 120. They knocked at the door, introducing themselves as the police. Obviously the squatters didn’t believe them, and refused to open the door anyway. Vestia threatened them to call the police, so they gave them the following documents proving they were living here for more than a week. Those documents were stamped by the OM on the 19th of February to prove the authenticity of the date.
According to Dutch law, those documents mean that Vestia is supposed to do a court case against the squatters in order to get an eviction order. After 48 hours of occupancy it’s illegal to evict a squat without an order from a judge. [Read More]
Rotterdam: Tweebosbuurt callout for solidarity
For the freedom to occupy abandoned places, an eviction, 10 occupations!
In a few days from now, next Wednesday March 4th, 6 squats (3 of which officially and the rest very likely) are facing eviction, 6 homes people have been transforming and living in for months, whilst also fighting against the demolition and gentrification of the neighborhood. 6 houses whose residents will be thrown out onto the street with all their possessions by the police. The date of 4 March is decisive, both for the future of these homes and for the continuation of the battle here in Tweebosbuurt. We are therefore launching a call out to come and support us and to be present in solidarity during the evictions. [Read More]
Rotterdam: Squatted house evicted within a day. Nocturnal dialogue with Vestia
Police and Vestia think they can do anything with impunity again!
The police evicted a squat in the Tweebosstraat in Rotterdam-Zuid on Wednesday evening. Squatters had entrenched themselves on the balcony and the roof. Four arrests were made. A group of squatters entered the empty building earlier in the day. The police were present with many officers to remove the group. The houses in the Tweebosstraat are on the nomination to be demolished. Earlier, there were also houses squatted for a short period of time in the neighbourhood to protest against the current vacancy.
The Hague: A nocturnal dialogue with Vestia.
In the night of February 25th a nightly visit was made to the Vestia office at the Loevesteinlaan in The Hague. Several windows were smashed and paint bombs were thrown on the building. Vestia is a mafia embraced by the state. The housing corporation is well known for its malpractices and its total disregard for tenants. After the 2008 crisis, the company continued to cheerfully raise rents, sell out social housing and postpone crucial maintenance of social housing. People were struggling with leakage, moisture and mold problems, and Vestia didn’t seem to care.
Now Vestia is once again demolishing more than 500 social housing units in the Tweebosbuurt in Rotterdam. The corporation will only rebuild 130 social housing units, the rest will be business premises and owner-occupied houses. Vestia’s project in the Tweebosbuurt is one of brutal gentrification. [Read More]
Rotterdam: About police actions in Tweebosbuurt
We’ve been silently listening to lots of different people talking about squatters in Tweebosbuurt in the last few days. From the leftist parties supporting squatters and newspapers calling them “heroes of Tweebosbuurt” to far right activists calling them criminals and claiming that they should be jailed or kicked out of the country. We thought that most of what could be said about squatters in Tweebosbuurt has been said. But then Wim Hoonhout, head of communication of Rotterdam’s police, decided to give his opinion on twitter as well, and it says a lot about how this city works: “Anti-capitalists, anarchists and extremists from Europe choose Tweebosbuurt for their actions. Thereby threaten the safety of residents. This requires a strict approach. Police [is] committed to ensuring that safety. Violence must be proportional and subsidiary. These people seek to undermine the rule of law. Leon [a journalist supporting squatters] trivializes their behavior and condemns our action”.
This is important and needs to be analyzed carefully.
Let’s start with squatting: as you might know, squatting is illegal in the Netherlands and was considered a criminal offense. But you should also know that since the 2 December 2010, the state court has ruled that the law forbidding squatting was illegal. Since then, squatting is legally considered as a civil issue, a disagreement of interest between two private parties. It’s not a criminal offense anymore. [Read More]
Athens: Update from the trial for the eviction of Gare squat
Three were the accused at yesterday’s trial for the police operation of the 26th of August 2019, when the new wave of state attacks against squats begun. The charges were those relevant with illegal occupation, in another words the offense to private property, and the new package of prosecutions against squatters which is theft of water and electricity.
The accused, each with their own speech , defended the moral right to the use of an abandoned building for social and political work, on top of the “housing needs” and they denied entirely the responsibility of the charges . They referred to the open procedures, events, political and cultural which Gare squat housed, and to the public bath which was operating daily and in a self organized way by its users , the migrants, homeless and excluded. [Read More]
Rotterdam: Free Anton !
He has a smiling face, his eyes are filled with sweetness and in the midst of silence, I can still hear him shouting Fuck them and their law.
He recounts how he got arrested. How he just wanted to go back to see some friends, saw cops passing. And no luck, they started following him. Abusive identity check. The arrest quickly turned into a humiliating and violent chase. He was the first victim of the heightening repression in the neighbourhood. January the 22nd two thousand and twenty. 1:12 p.m. [Read More]
Rotterdam: letter from the Tweebosbuurt
Some inhabitants wrote a public letter to call to support Anton. Note that it is based on their current understanding of the situation.
“Hello, we’re a group of inhabitants of the neighborhood of Tweebosbuurt in Rotterdam, Netherlands. We’re organizing against it’s demolition and the gentrification of the District for several months. The situation were actually in our favor, the court made a decision against the demolition. However, during the past few days, police of Rotterdam started an awful harassment campaign against the inhabitants of the neighborhood. 25 people were arrested in the past few days, 19 activists supporting the local struggle and 6 other inhabitants during “random” identity controls. A police car is driving by our street two or three time every hour, day and night, and they ask ID documents to people walking in the streets of the neighborhood. If that person “looks like an activist” or is not able to immediately provide ID documents they’re immediately locked up for several hours. Several people (at least 3) got beaten up in their cells. One of them (EU citizen) got evicted of the country after 30 hours of custody because she was walking her dog without a leach in the neighborhood. Another one is still in detention and is facing deportation in a country where he’s danger, and is not provided any medical care in detention despite several broken bones during his arrest. [Read More]
Rotterdam: Alarming situation in Tweebosbuurt
The situation in Tweebosbuurt suddenly changed.
Two days ago, one of the squat got illegally evicted and we discovered that Vestia, the company owning the buildings we squat, illegally added new documents to the court case against one of the squats in the last moment so we cannot defend from them. We also heard that someone from the neighborhood got attacked tonight in the streets with a metal pipe because he was parking his bike close to the squat that was evicted a few days ago. Hopefully he’s not hurt. The attackers ran always after a single hit. In the same time, we’re facing an awful harassment campaign by the police. A car is assigned to the neighborhood day and night, and they control everyone of us any time we walk in the neighborhood. Some inhabitants are almost locked up inside because of police harassment. Someone have been even arrested twice in two days. In addition to the 19 arrested during the eviction two days ago, 5 other people living in the neighborhood got arrested during ID controls without legal motives already. Another person is missing, probably also arrested. We don’t know for sure because police refuses to give us any information. Three of them were injured during the arrest or during custody. [Read More]
Rotterdam: Two other evictions and 19 new arrests in Tweebosbuurt
Yesterday, one apartment was evicted by the police on Tweebosbuurt. On their way back, the police stopped in front of one of the squats in the neighborhood and tried to get in. This place is protected by house peace and an ongoing legal procedure.
The inhabitants went outside to talk to the police and ask them to stop. The police refused to give the reason of their presence, and asked for everyone’s ID (some people were even still inside) without legal justifications. Two employees from Vestia were with them, laughing at the situation. Some inhabitants refused this abusive and illegal control. Somebody was arrested. They brought them at Zuidplein Police Station for a few hours, and physically forced them to give fingerprints and took pictures of their face. They got out of the police station 4 hours latter and came home safely.
We though it was going to calm down, but we were wrong. Today, we saw the neighborhood police going back and forth Tweebosstraat controlling people’s ID. One of the inhabitants rang to the door of one of the squat and got arrested almost immediately while he was walking in. Some people went downstairs immediately and asked the police the reason for this arrest. They wouldn’t say. They asked for everyone’s ID again, without any legitimate motive. People insisted to know the reason of the arrest, and they answered “You don’t have anything to do with this kind of people, go home and let us do our job”. Most likely, this was a racist statement because the person that was arrested was obviously not Dutch. They threatened that person of being “removed” of the country. [Read More]
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