Barcelona: We reoccupied Ca La Trava

We have returned to Ca La Trava, now an empty plot, and we are not planning to leave. This space, until now closed, will again be open to the neighborhood, and we will defend it as we have defended our houses. We want it to be again a trench from which to resist the onslaught of the speculators and give war to all those who are destroying our neighborhood. If in Ca La Trava they make luxury flats we all lose, and we can’t allow that.

These are times of empty phrases, of euphemisms, of symbolisms without content and of politicians contradicting each new declaration. For this reason, we want to make it clear that when we say “Ca La Trava will never be luxury flats” we say it as seriously as possible. The struggle of Ca La Trava is not a lost struggle, and resquatting is not an improvised decision or the fruit of sentimentalism. Our goal is to win and we are convinced that we will. [Read More]

London: Call out for a noise demo in solidarity with Barcelona’s war on gentrification

On Monday 8th July at 8.30am, activists will gather in front of Blackstone offices at 40 Berkley Square in London W1 J5AL for a noise demo to show solidarity with Barcelona’s residents fighting against gentrification.

Blackstone Group, a New York based multinational private equity firm and the World’s largest alternative investment company*, is the biggest property and hotel owner in Spain. The firm, along other large companies such as Goldman Sachs, Apollo Management and Cerberus, have been buying tens of thousands of residential properties in Spain and then raising rents and evicting thousands of long-term tenants to make space for richer and more “desirable” residents: or just leaving homes to rot empty while their value increases. [Read More]

Madrid-Barcelona: Estate agents attacked in solidarity with the CSOA La Gatonera and the CSO Ka La Trava

Thursday September 27, the windows of estate agency Tecnocasa in Vallekas were shattered. The agency was also covered in paint. This action aims to encourage the comrades of the CSOA La Gatonera (Carabanchel-Madrid) and Ka La Trava (Gràcia-Barcelona), as well as all the people who struggle in defence of squats as a revolutionary tool.
Neighbourhoods are being transformed by capitalist speculation, gentrification being a tightening of screws in a cyclical process that affects all the cities of the world. Real estate agencies and other capitalist entities such as banks and speculators are responsible. Let’s spread the attack against them and build bridges based on solidarity and attack.
Refusing to negotiate with the State, the town hall or private property and resisting the scoundrels and the police must have an echo of solidarity in the form of seeking and spreading the struggle. This is only the beginning and we call for the reproduction of the attack, overcoming any path of mediation and negotiation with power. We do not negotiate with the State and capital. [Read More]

Barcelona: Can Bee Update

CSO La Palmira has been permanently evicted.

Some of us opened a CSO (social center okupa) at the old hippy house Can Bee and are actively supporting the squat network in Kollserola, the nature park north of Barcelona.

The collective works together to recycle food at the market and has monthly meetings, rotating between the squats Ca l’Avia, La Experimental, Matakrostas (if we resist eviction tomorrow!), La Folklorika, 7 Mansions, La Xesca, Kan Pasqual and Can Masdeu. We’re forming working groups for police repression, a radical library, and a comprehensive directory of abandoned houses in the area.

We are also promoting a local fair currency and a food co-op. [Read More]

Barcelona: Fascists burn Ateneu Popular de Sarrià

While the Spanish government and the press in Madrid have not stopped talking about violence by citizens and pro-independence groups, this morning (March29) fascists burned the Ateneu de Sarrià and painted it with Nazi and fascist symbols.

The site had already suffered attacks in advance, which have intensified since the referendum was held. On the walls of the patio have appeared swastikas,”Death to the CDR” (Citizens Defense).
[Read More]

Spanish state: temporary end of the anarchist terrorism myth

After a total of 33 arrests, three years of investigation during which hundreds of documents were analysed, house searches across the country, hours of phone conversations recorded, bank accounts frozen, and, worst of all, after subjecting some of the accused to months of imprisonment, Spain’s Audiencia Nacional tribunal has closed the legal proceedings and state persecution of anarchists known as Operación Piñata. The reason: lack of sufficient evidence to put anyone on trial. The decision follows the request by defense lawyers to dismiss the investigation.

The police Operation Piñata joins Operations Pandora and Pandora II as criminal cases against the so-called ‘anarcho terrorism’, as the Secretary of State for Security, Francisco Martínez, called it during the morning when the arrests took place in March 2015.

Five of the twelve defendants under Operación Piñata were placed in custody for months. The arrest warrants made reference to acts of sabotage, possession of explosives and even possible criminal offenses related to trafficking of narcotics or psychotropic substances’: none of which was supported by evidence. [Read More]

Barcelona: Eviction of la Rimaia

This morning, wednesday June 14th, 2017, the Mossos d’Esquadra (police force of Catalonia) have evicted la Rimaia squat, located at 12 Ronda de Sant Pau. Occupied several times, the last time it has been occupied was between April 20th, 2016 and… June 14th, 2017. [Read More]

Barcelona: How solidarity and mutual aid saved Barcelona’s Can Vies Squat for eviction and destruction

bcn27m_9The Can Vies social centre in Barcelona made headlines around the world when its eviction led to five consecutive nights of rioting in late May 2014. But the social center has a longer history than this.

Can Vies, originally built in 1879 to stock construction materials for the city’s subway, became the headquarters of the anarcho-syndicalist CNT transport union during the 1930s Spanish Revolution. Following Franco’s victory in 1939, the building became the center for a fascist, hierarchal labor union.

In 1997, the building was abandoned by its owners, Barcelona’s transport authority (TMB), and was subsequently squatted by the neighborhood’s youth. Since then, the Centro Social Autogestionado Can Vies has become a well-used and well-loved community space providing a variety of services to the people of Sants, a neighborhood with a strong tradition of cooperatives. [Read More]

Barcelona: The only solution – re-open El Banc Expropiat

[Statement of May 31] If you agree with our demands you can sign, either individually or collectively, by writing to us to us via email (elbanc [at] riseup [dot] net) or by sending us a direct message on Twitter.

A week has passed since the Catalan police evicted the Banc Expropiat last Monday, on May 23th. Since then we have seen it all: confrontations with the police, trash containers used as barricades, and banking offices with their windows wrecked. But we have also seen the Catalan police firing head-shots with their new foam ammunition, politicians of all kinds lying and going off on tangents, criminalization of protest in the media etc etc.
[Read More]

Barcelona: Third Statement of El Banc

We’ll try to enter again
May 27, 2016

Whatever might be said by the City Council about this conflict, it does not take place between private parts, it is a conflict between two ways of living: those who want a common life and to relate through mutual support networks, produced among equals, and those who defend private property – regardless of its use – and the supremacy of some over others.
[Read More]

Barcelona: Second statement of El Banc

[May26] These days are being very intense and this is why we’re having difficulties to spread informations as a collective. Within our capacities, we will add more detail to our version of the facts of these last few days and also our opinion on many aspects of the conflict that is taking place.

First of all, we would like to thank all the people that moved from solidarity to explicit engagement with the project of El Banc Expropiat.
[Read More]

Barcelona: Statement of El Banc

WE WILL RETURN TO EL BANC

Yesterday, May 23th, El Banc Expropiat was evicted by the Catalan police, after more than 160 days of resistance (more than 100 during the first campaign, and 87 days this time). The first time, the City Hall secretly decided to pay over 65.000EUR to Manuel Bravo Solano, who owns the bank, in order to avoid another Can Vies before the municipal elections. After this shady deal was exposed, the City Hall justified itself saying that they believed that the Banc had an important “social” role. They then admitted that this rent was being paid to avoid breaking the social peace, because they knew that the eviction of El Banc would imply all sorts of responses. This is what finally happened yesterday. First of all, we would like to thank all the solidarity that we have received, a solidarity which has taken many different forms and that has also meant a form of support to all the other struggles which are currently taking place.
[Read More]