Madrid: Ateneo Libertario de Vallekas evicted

At 7 a.m. on October 23rd, numerous riot police vans came to the social center to proceed with their eviction. The collective calls for a rally this afternoon at 8:00 p.m. in the Amos Acero Park.

This morning the threat hanging over the Ateneo Libertario of Vallecas was fulfilled. At 6:00 a.m. a caravan of anti-riot vans arrived at the entrance of the Ateneo, at 59 Párroco Don Emilio Franco Street. It was not until one hour later, at 7:00 a.m., that the anti-riot agents managed to break down the door to gain access to the interior of the space.

According to sources from the collective that used the space consulted by El Salto, “there was only one person inside, who has not been arrested. The building was an old textile factory that had been unused for more than seven years when it was squatted in 2014. Up to six anti-riot vans have been placed along the street of the Parish Priest Don Emilio Franco, blocking the front of the building. [Read More]

Madrid: First attempt to evict the Ateneo Libertario in Vallekas stopped. The struggle continues

On September 16, it was again made clear that solidarity and direct action are the best weapon we have as a means of defense against the state and repression. About 150 people from Vallekas and other neighborhoods of the city gathered at the door of the Ateneo Libertario de Vallekas to prevent the eviction of the space. This is not just the eviction of a space, it is the defense of squatting as a tool of struggle in the social war, as a tool to create with our own hands, outside of parties and institutions, spaces of struggle, meeting and learning.

And we achieved this (thanks to all of you). We had a modest deployment of journalists, municipal police vans and the district commissioner. Due to the flow of solidarity, the judicial secretary had no choice but to pass by. Now, any day and without notice, the Ateneo can be evicted. [Read More]

Madrid: Imminent threat of eviction of the Ateneo Libertario de Vallekas

At the end of August we received a nice notification from the court that on September 16th the police and the locksmith would come to the space to proceed with the eviction. Our space, the Ateneo Libertario de Vallekas, has been serving for two years as a place for activities, debates, assemblies, gymnasium and a meeting point for various libertarian initiatives.

Thus we find ourselves in Vallekas, a neighborhood in the city of Madrid, a breeding ground for capitalist speculation, led by successive city councils, regardless of their political persuasion; the neighborhood is a breeding ground for real estate companies, banks, vulture funds, big landowners, journalists and the occasional submissive citizen. Vallekas has been through these speculative processes like gentrification, which have already devastated the center of the city and reached the working class neighborhoods of the periphery years ago. The idea is simple: to turn the neighborhood into an immense commercial center where the only possible relationship is that which is structured around consumption, which expels and pursues poverty, criminalizing it in favor of a new profile of inhabitant with greater purchasing power. The rise in rents is only the tip of the iceberg. The city of the rich is built on the expulsion, the precarization of life and the impossibility of free use of the street and space by its inhabitants. [Read More]

Madrid: Inauguration of the Ateneo Libertario in Vallekas

In these times of generalized apathy, political opportunism, new contestatory fashions coming directly from the university, from iphone and misery living together, in short, in these times where it seems that the molecular development of an amoeba is easier than any type of social change, we follow our own. Combating capitalist modernity, reformism and, of course, the State. Unlearning their values and practices, and working for the construction of free people. On this occasion, we are pleased to announce the opening of the new Ateneo Libertario de Vallekas.
It will be located at Calle Párroco Don Emilio Franco nº 59, near the Nueva Numancia metro station and the Entrevias railway station. We are aware that we are taking possession of a space with an eviction process nearing its end. This circumstance only reaffirms our refusal to cease our efforts.
This new project aims to build a space for integral formation, at all levels: manual, intellectual, emotional … for which we will use different tools such as workshops, courses, talks, debates, round tables, conferences …

On the other hand, we also intend to form ourselves as a group to participate in a clear and active way in the social and political life of the neighborhood from a revolutionary perspective: evidencing the injustices of the system, encouraging self-management, direct action, solidarity among oppressed people, individual and collective awareness, and self-organized social action. We believe that it is only by starting from below and acting in the everyday that we can profoundly and radically change society. For no political party is going to fight for us. [Read More]