Call for international solidarity
The Klinika Autonomous Social Centre celebrated its first anniversary,running a space on legal loan in Žižkov, Prague. Activists occupied the house, which laid derelict and full of rubbish for five years, at the end of November 2014, and after police interventions and negotiations on the contract with the Bureau for Representation of the State in Issues of Property, the Centre, called Klinika, began its varied program in March 2015.
Neonazis attacked Klinika. One person was hurt, others were in danger. Activists assume there’s a link between islamophobic demonstrations that were held today and visited by thousands of people. Klinika collective is not afraid and is going to continue its activities. Klinika also calls on people attending such demonstrations to realize whom they are supporting by doing that.
English info about the Fenix case in Czech Republic originally posted on 23/06/2015, updated 21/07/2015, still current
Non-vegan diet, isolation, boredom, 90 minutes of daylight, meeting people through bars and hardened glass. These are just some of the conditions our comrades experience whilst imprisoned. In this article we would like to describe the everyday reality of imprisoned anarchists and outline ways to support them. We call for support of all four defendants and especially for Martin an I., to whom the next few weeks may be critical. We also call for exerting pressure on the Pankrác prison to respect Martin’s vegan diet and towards improving prison conditions in general and Ruzyně prison to respect I.’s vegan diet.
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Czech republic is a country of „political stability“. In despite of general disillusionment in capitalism no social movements haven’t emerged yet. Whereas in other countries social protests and demonstrations underway at least, in the Czech republic demonstrations against neoliberal austerity can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Moreover even the radical left, anarchist and anti-authoritarian activities were in decline after anti-IMF and anti-NATO summit protests at the beginning of 2000’s and squatting practically disappeared.
The situation began to change slowly after the eviction the last squat in Prague in 2009. In the next years the squatting has become important repertoire of action of the small radical and autonomous milieu in Prague. In despite of police repression and quick evictions of the squats, activists used the squatting as a tool in struggle against real estate speculations, and as a symbolic challenge the dogma of private property as one of the cornerstone of capitalist ideology in the Czech republic. After 2012 only one squat (Cibulka) remained, but squatters brought attention to the issues of speculations. Besides this symbolic struggle there was long-term effort in autonomous milieu to open squatted social center as autonomous space for radical and anti-capitalists politics. [Read More]
The Cibulka squat has been evicted today, four people are still in the tower, twelve have been already arrested according media report.
More info to be posted as soon as possible.
Communique 11/05/2015 – Cibulka evicited…
Hello comrades friends and all the others
Our beloved squat Cibulka was evicted in wednesday 6th of may The police sent “tens of tens” (as described by the media) policemen in heavy armor with a water cannon against ten residents and less than twenty visitors of the run-down building. From those they then picked out residents according to an in advance prepared list and took them in for questioning. One of us got a suspended sentence in speeded-up proceedings, seven others are prosecuted for so called unauthorized use of property. We consider the intervention not only illegitimate, but also illegal according to what is here called legal code of the state. In spite of losing a place to live, in spite of the beating, threats, bullying and contempt from the police, state offices and even “decent” society, we remain free – our fight goes on! [Read More]
Prague is just like any other big European city in desperate need of a noncommercial community centre, of a space for cultural events (such as concerts, exhibitions, etc.), educational lectures and workshops, community gardening, cooking, library, and, above all, meeting people from the neighbourhood (or anyone interested) and also a place to support marginalized groups of people (especially people without homes) who are living in stop-gap conditions on the fringes of society.
The building of former lung clinic (that’s why the name “Klinika“) in Žižkov district, which was abandoned, unused and left to decay, was taken over by a group of squatters and activists on 29th of November 2014 in order to create “Autonomous cultural and social centre Klinika“. All the trash including used needles was cleaned out and the first neighbourhood event was organized. But after just 10 days, on 9th of December, the building was violently vacated by police forces. On the 13th of December big demonstration took place (about 1000 people) but after its end police corpses forced everyone to leave the place, several people were injured and had to be taken to the hospital. Since then, we were stuck in endless cycle of meetings with city and state offices and basically forced to wait. [Read More]
Czech squatting weekend in Amsterdam, February 20th – 22nd 2015. Klinika on tour!
Friday 20.02.2015 Klinika soli night with food, presentation, discussion & more @ Squatted autonomous space Joe’s Garage http://www.joesgarage.nl/
19:00 Soli dinner (some Czech traditional dish in the vegan style)
20:00 Presentation
21:00 Discussion, maybe some movie about current squatting theme in Czech Republic and maybe some acoustic concert
Some members of Czech squatting movement are coming to Amsterdam to present and discuss about the actual breakthrough in the squatting movement in Czech Republic. On Saturday, November 29th, an abandoned building of a former clinic in Prague district of Žižkov was occupied by a group of activists. Cleaning works, reconstruction and program started immediately. Despite widespread support, including neighbors, politicians, artists, journalists etc., the owner of the house – Office for Government Representation in Property Affairs – withdrawed from negotiations. Regarding to some sources, the “anti-extremist” department of Czech police played an important role in this decision.
Autonomní sociální centrum Klinika (Autonomous Social Centre Klinika /Clinic http://451.cz/klinika/ ) was evicted December 9th after ten days of struggle and hundreds of people participating. Spontaneous demonstrations immediately took place in front and inside of Žižkov city hall and in office of the owner. After a few days, one thousand people demonstrated in support of the autonomous center. The building is now being guarded, but the struggle isn’t over yet. Žižkov councilors agreed that they will start negotiations with the state. The public support of squatting is now the highest in Czech history. The ministers of interior, finance and social affairs publicly admitted the possibility of decriminalization of squatting. We, as a group supporting a project of social centre, are calling for international support! A pressure on Czech state can help us to create a historical success. Every city needs it’s clinic!
Saturday 21.02.2015, Soli concert and party @ DisKontrol, Papaverweg 7, Amsterdam Noord [Read More]
As we already informed you in previous article, the squatted autonomous centre Klinika (situated in former clinic owned by state, now in decay and without any real plans how to revive it) in Prague was evicted on 9th of December, despite having support from neighbourhood, people from wider cultural scene and even from council of local municipality, Žižkov. The struggle continues and Klinika needs any kind of support more than before.
While there still were (and still are) some kind of negotiations going on between delegates from Klinika and various state and city organizations, a solidarity happening took place in Prague on Saturday 13th of December. Up to thousand people joined and walked through the neighbourhood in a possitive mood. After the march was finished in front of Klinika, a group of attendees occupied the house for a few minutes, but after they were persuaded by so-called “Anti-conflict team” of the police, they left without any force being used on them. However, the police used this issue as an excuse to displace people from public spaces around the house in quite a brutal way – the organizer of demo was beaten down for no obvious reason, people were pushed to fall down the hill, two ended up in hospital… [Read More]
If you have ever visited Prague, you may have spent time in the district of Žižkov. It is well known for being one of the foremost centers for alternative culture in the country. So you would think that a neighborhood with such an important role would be a place thriving with unrestricted art movements and an anything-goes cultural norm. Unfortunately, that is not the current situation in modern day Žižkov. This can be seen no better than in the current situation of the Autonomous Social Centre KLIniKA.
Klinika was established in the beginning of December when a group of activists occupied an old clinical center and decided to change it into something what we still miss in Praha. With a very nicely formulated project they wanted to build an independent social – cultural center based on autonomous principals. The autonomous centre could have the power to create from a devestated clinic a successful, publically beneficial project. Unfortunately, as usual, state authorities with fear and prejudices, dealt with it through no dialogue but with repression. After 10 days Klinika was evicted by the riot police. Moreover, the facts which now we learn lead to the conclusion, that the police have got much more influence than we first expected. [Read More]
On Friday, the 7th February in the early evening, police evicted the “silent squat” in Neklanova street in Prague 2, used exclusively for housing. The house owned by an Italian company who have cleared the house besides one tenant who welcomed the ‘squatters’. During the intervention, which was without unjustified violence by the security forces, sixteen people were arrested, including several onlookers who came to support the squatters.
Political scientist Ondřej Slačálek has informed the Czech Press Agency that the famous Czech anarchist and defender of the rights of Romani people, Jakub Polák, passed away yesterday. The activist succumbed to cancer just after turning 60. In the months before his death he was engaged in the case of the evictions of people living in the buildings on Přednádraží street in Ostrava-Přívoz.
Jakub Polák was born on 1 September 1952 in Karlovy Vary and became involved in public life in 1968, as a result of which he was forbidden from enrolling into higher education. He was part of the dissident and underground movements in the years after 1968. In 1989 he was a co-founder of the strike committee and actively contributed to the events of the Velvet Revolution. However, from the beginning of his public life he advocated for alternative political stances, which led him to join the ranks of the “Left Alternative” (Levá alternativa – LA), where he was active as its executive secretary. There he became a member of the anarchist wing of the LA, which later left the LA to become the Czechoslovak Anarchist Association (Československé anarchistické sdružení – ČAS). In 1990 Jakub Polák co-founded the first squat in Prague on plk. Sochora street. Together with people from ČAS he began publishing the A-Kontra magazine in 1991, which became the main publication of the anarchist movement as it came into being during the first half of the 1990s. At that time he was considered the unofficial spokesperson of Czech anarchism. [Read More]
The Prague’s renowned squat Villa Milada, which was evicted three years ago after being one of the most important places for Czech autonomous underground scene, had been occupied by approximately 30 people on Saturday June 30th to commemorate the bleak anniversary by an improvised hardcore punk gig. Even though the authorities were informed that this is a one-off event which is not an attempt to reoccupy the squat for good but a symbolic pointing out of a passive approach of a Czech state to take care of unused buildings and of the oppression against alternative culture, the police reacted with a massive police operation including an aggressive attack against the non-violent concert-goers, which resulted in many bloody injuries and in a temporary arrest of tens of people. [Read More]
