A call for the self-representations of autonomous projects

The SqEK network of researchers and activists meets in Barcelona, Spain, May 21st to 25th, 2015. We present there an exhibition of posters and information presentations from and about autonomous spaces, from the squatting, occupation and disobedient movements. This show will go on to the USA in September.

We call for posters and presentations to be sent by post (please contact for address), or by digital file so that we can print them out on site.
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Barcelona: La Clandestina, six months of Okupation

Barcelona_La_ClandestinaBarcelona, March 2015

Today in Catalunya, social centers and hospitals are closing, universities deny access to students unable to pay and districts are bought and sold for tourism.
Today in Catalunya, this project has been brought to life as a clear rejection of these practices and as a place to discuss, learn, share and act against an unjust reality.
« In this context, we choose to continue digging as clandestine ants, working in community to set the path of civil disobedience. » – la clandestina squat
La Clandestina is an Okupa created in a building owned by the SAREB, a place that has been empty and unused for too long. In July 2014, a group of people decided to enter and start rehabilitating this place. Doing so, they stand up against speculation.
This 14th of March, La Clandestina celebrates six months of occupation. Concerts, workshops and vegan meal; a nice opportunity to start telling a bit of its history. [Read More]

Operation Piñata: Five comrades imprisoned, ten conditionally bailed, address for three of the prisoners

Early afternoon on Wednesday 1st April, the judge of the Audiencia Nacional [National High Court] Eloy Velasco, remanded in prison 5 of the 15 individuals arrested on Monday 30th March during the police operation named Piñata. 24 others were arrested during the 17 raids, which took place in Madrid, Barcelona, Palencia and Granada, for “disobedience and resistance”, who were then subsequently released. [Read More]

Barcelona/Granada/Madrid/Palencia: Police Piñata raids

This morning in Operation Piñata (following Pandora in December) cops have raided social centres and arrested people (at least 26) in Barcelona, Madrid, Palencia and Granada.

La 13-14 in Madrid announced it was being raided this morning.
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Dead city: torturing squatters for a cleaner Barcelona

Note: Regarding this article, it is important to also read the comment about problems with the film and also two texts written as a response, currently only on es.squat.net, “Comunicado de Juan Pintos, detenido/encarcelado/condenado por el montaje del 4F” and “Cuando una imagen no vale más que mil palabras“.

Ashes, blood and orujo mingle with the rain, showering the crowd in front of Barcelona’s city hall. Diana Torres has mixed her beloved Patri’s remains with the eye-watering grape liqueur — famous for its use in invocations — and her own vital fluid. She sprinkles the concoction over just some of the thousands who have gathered in solidarity. “I want vengeance and retribution, that word we inherited from the witches,” she says over the PA, as Cindy Lauper’s ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’ reverberates throughout the square. Then she calls for a minute of screaming, and the plaza erupts.
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Defenders of Can Vies Squat Center sentenced in Barcelona

CanVies (pronounced ‘vias’) is an Occupied assembly-run Social center, set by the railwaytracks in what was once a CNT Union Center 80 years ago. The occupation has lasted 17 years, surviving multiple eviction attempts due to strong local support. [Read More]

Barcelona: El Banc Expropiat de Gràcia resists!

After the botched eviction of Can Vies in late May, squatters have been preparing for the new offensive of the Catalan state. The riots that now taking place show how the new forms of occupation that are emerging in Barcelona in response to the austerity crisis have managed to gather massive popular support.
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Eviction Delayed Again: The Expropriated Bank, Barcelona

The ‘Expropriated Bank’ is one of 7 occupied social centers in  ex banks in and around Barcelona.  Though long overdue for eviction the State has hesitated, perhaps a bit nervous after failing to evict Can Vies last year due to huge solidarity.

Maybe they don’t want to coincide with widespread public anger at the jailing of 7 activists for being anarchists.  (Mass Demos vs. Gag law and Arrest of Anarchists)

Perhaps they wish to avoid more opposition to their corrupt banks which have presided over the eviction of up to half a million people to balance their crooked books.

Whatever the reason the ‘Expropriated Bank’ in Gracia barrio is still going strong. Here’s a translation of their latest communiqué…..

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Barcelona: Reportback from demonstration in solidarity with those detained in Operation Pandora

[Other recent solidarity actions in Lisbon, Paris and San Francisco]

On Saturday, December 27th, 2014, at 5pm, demonstrators took to the streets in the city centre of Barcelona in solidarity with anarchists detained in the context of Operation Pandora at the request of Judge-executioner Javier Gómez Bermúdez.

Protesters started to march on broad streets, shouting slogans in solidarity with the detainees, and against the police, prisons and the State. The demonstration ended up in the Gracia area. Upon entering this neighbourhood, hooded comrades uninhibitedly attacked many bank branches, several multinational shops, as well as the 5-star Casa Fuster hotel (which was the Nazi Germany’s consulate in Barcelona in 1936, prior to being the headquarters of the revolution’s defense committee in the spring of 1937, until it was taken by the Falange in 1939, and became a luxury hotel during the Transition, after the associative neighbourhood movement attempted to turn it into social facilities). [Read More]

Spanish State – Operation Pandora: Democracy imprisons 7 more anarchists

On December 16, Operation Pandora was unleashed. The State’s security forces burst into different houses and squats in Barcelona and Madrid, and eleven anarchist comrades were kidnapped.

This kidnapping—and it couldn’t have been done any other way—was coordinated with the media, who helped justify and legitimate it with heart and soul, spreading the news that the police had carried out an operation against international anarchist terrorism. This kidnapping of eleven comrades set off a multitude of rallies and demonstrations that same day in different cities—Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, and Zaragoza, for example—thousands of people coming out in solidarity with the kidnapped comrades and showing rage and hatred towards the State’s new repressive operation against the libertarian movement. [Read More]

Pandora’s box and the hotchpotch of Spanish anti-terrorism – about the recent raids

Text written a week ago about Pandora’s police operation in Spain against anarchists

The morning of Tuesday the 16th of December has surprised us with a wave of house raids and arrests. Surprised us? We are not going to lie. Let’s start again. The morning of the 16th of December has NOT surprised us. The autonomous Catalan police, the Mossos d’Esquadra, and the Guardia Civil and judiciary powers of the Audiencia Nacional stormed more than ten houses and a few anarchist spaces in Barcelona, Sabadell, Manresa and Madrid, with house raids, arrests, confiscation of propaganda material and information, to also use the occasion to enter and plunder, with the entire riot police team of the Mossos d’Esquadra, Kasa de la Muntanya, a squatted place that has existed for 25 years. [Read More]

Spain: Cops arrest 11, raid anarchist Social Centres. 16+ solidarity demos already

 [Barcelona-Madrid] Operation of the High Court against the Catalan and Spanish libertarian movement  (in Catalan below) pre riot strolling#OperacionPandora to criminalise anarchist social movements.

b49amiliiaax_3t.jpg-large_0    [Barcelona-Madrid] #OperacionPandora by the neo fascist PP controlled High Court against the Catalan and Spanish libertarian movement

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