After the Nazis’ show of force last Sunday in Cologne, largely tolerated by the police’s repression of antifascists’ counter-demonstration, the Nazis and their football hooligans are planning “a revolution” on November 9 in Berlin, and attacks against Rote Flora autonomous social center in Hamburg during another demonstration on November 15. They plan similar demo in Wuppertal this weekend. [Read More]
Berlin: Updated 3/7: Fight against eviction of squatted refugee school
Berlin: Squatting memories
When, for a short time at the beginning of the nineties, the underground was in charge of East Berlin’s centre, activist and photographer Ben de Biel was there: at Kunsthaus Tacheles, at I.M. Eimer, and as the founder of MARIA Club. Today, de Biel has moved on from organizing events and now works as the press relations officer for the Piraten Partei. In this monologue, part of a series of artists and other key cultural figures speaking openly about their artistic experience in the city, de Biel told us about his own Berlin experiment.
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Schwarzwohnen: The spatial politics of squatting in East Berlin
East Berlin’s squatter movement erupted across the city after the fall of the wall in 1989. But what role did housing activists in the 1980s play in shaping an alternative vision for the contemporary city?
In September 1988, an anonymous report appeared in the East German underground magazine Umweltblätter describing the plight of a group of squatters who had occupied 61 Lychenerstrasse in the Berlin district of Prenzlauer Berg. In the squatters own words, they had “occupied the house in order to overcome the contradiction between, on the one hand, the many vacant and decaying houses [in Berlin], and on the other, a growing number of people in search of housing”. As “squatters (Instandbesetzer),” they proclaimed, “we will resist the further cultural and spiritual devastation of the country.”[i]
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October 19th: European Day of Action for Housing
Housing for people, not for profit!
We are confronted with a brutal European austerity regime which continues to transform our livelihoods into financial assets for global speculation, which violates the universal right to housing every day, which destroys democracy at all levels and has no socially acceptable solution for the crisis of capitalism. Not only since the crisis it is the poor and excluded who get hit by this system especially hard: un- and underemployed, homeless, precarious workers, immigrants, Roma, students, single mums, and everybody who is not willing to fit into a capitalist mode of reproduction. This group is now becoming the majority of society.
How the capitalist systems plays out in the diverse housing markets in Europe might be different, but the underlying logic of neoliberal politics, privatization and financialization of our homes is the same.
This is why we aim to stand up, to unite our struggles and to broaden our movements. We will not let us be divided by neoliberal politics.
Join our struggle on October 19th!
Cardiff (Wales): Solidarity with squats under attack in Greece and raids in Berlin from ACAB
On August 5th cops in Greece continued their campaign of repression against squats by raiding three squatted spaces in Patras: Parartima, Maragopouleio and the Self-managed Hangout inside the Technological Educational Institute (TEI). 16 comrades were detained in total; 5 squatters and 11 supporters.
While those showing solidarity were later released, the 5 occupants faced charges in court on the 13th. Therefore the next day we painted a banner to express our solidarity with squatters facing charges and evicted from their homes.
Additionally today we hung another banner to show solidarity with the squat Rigaer 94 and all those arrested during raids in Berlin on the 14th. The raids were supposedly related to arson attacks of various job centres and a Molotov attack against police, in solidarity with the revolts in Turkey after the eviction of Gezi Park in Istanbul. [Read More]
Berlin: Police raid Rigaer 94 this morning and other flats, demo tonight at 8pm in solidarity
According to first reports, there were huge police raids on eight house projects and apartments in Berlin, including the Rigaer 94, this morning (14/8). The cops are supposedly looking for people responsible for attacks on various job centers (‘welfare offices’) as well as a recent molotov attack against police, who were conducting a drug raid in Köttbusser Tor during a solidarity demonstration for the revolt in Turkey. More news as it comes…
Below is a call for spontaneous demonstration in response to the raids:
This morning, August 14th, 2013, cops raided several apartments in the Mitte, Kreuzberg and Neukölln neighbourhoods of Berlin.
In Friedrichshain the police deployed a riot squad, along with special task force troops to invade the house project Rigaer Straße 94 [whose front building was already stormed by cops on August 2nd]. [Read More]
Reinickendorf, Berlin (DE): Funeral of Rosemarie Fliess on Friday 26th in the Jerusalem Cemetery
Two days after being “force” evicted from her house in Berlin, the 67 year old Rosemarie Fliess died Thursday 11th of April 2013. The Alliance “Prevent Eviction“ calls for the funeral participation. It is a normal funeral. Following the funeral there will be a picnic in honor of Rosemarie Fliess on Blücherplatz. There we will eat together and exchange ideas. Bring food and flowers! Rosemarie was desperate and knew that she would lose her home. Ever since the protests for family Gülbol she was in the middle of events for fighting for tenants rights. They protested against the eviction of the family Gülbol also on the day of eviction. She attended, with many others, the court hearing of the Linien street 206, a threatened house project. During the evacuation in the Reuterstr. 2 she sat in front of the house to block, even though she was already very weak.
Liebig14, Berlin: Reflections on an Eviction – For the Joyful Militants
On the second anniversary of the eviction of Liebig 14
“An event can be turned around, repressed, co-opted, betrayed, but there is still something in it that cannot be outdated. Only renegades would say: it’s outdated. But even if the event is ancient, it can never be outdated: it is an opening onto the possible. It passes as much into the interior of individuals as into the depths of society” -Gilles Deleuze
Struggle and Repression
The second of February 2011: a Berlin house project is evicted by several thousand cops. This event paradoxically marks a moment that is both a recent high-point of struggle in Berlin, as well as a highpoint of repression. Thousands take to the streets to demonstrate a collective refusal: we do not accept this eviction, nor the eviction of any other emancipatory space, nor the eviction of any individual or family from their home as a result of a city politics that is so clearly rotten, twisted in its pursuit of financial gain. We refuse the power of this city politics, and its neo-liberal yea-sayers, have over urban space. We will continue to fight for this space – the city we live in – to be a collective creation and not an object of financial speculation.
International day of action against eviction and displacement – Protest actions in UK, France, Germany and Spain
Today (March 18, 2013 – s!n) at lunchtime, a small but determined protest action took place in front of the Spanish embassy in London to show solidarity with the Mortgage Holders Platform (PAH). People handed out leaflets (attached) to passers-by and embassy staff. Other protest events took place in Edinburgh, Berlin, Paris, Barcelona and lots of other Spanish cities. The action in London was supported by local private tenants groups and Unite Community. The protest in Paris was organized by the “Association of the Right to Housing” (“Association Droit au Logement”, DAL), in Berlin the alliance “Prevent evictions” (“Zwangsraeumungen verhindern”) and “Kotti&Co”, amongst others, followed the call for action.
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