Cologne: Elster230 evicted

– Police evicts Elster230 with large contingent
– Brutal police action
– Simultaneous eviction of squatted house ZentraleM in Münster
– Occupants announce demonstrations today in Cologne and Münster

This morning around 9am, a large police contingent forcibly invaded the Elster at Vogelsanger Str. 230 and evicted the self-governing queer feminist center.
The police’s actions were extremely brutal. In a different way, we observed, in addition to the measures of fixation mentioned above, that a person was tied up with cable ties and brutally dragged across the Lidl parking lot to a police car. There are several people with injuries and we saw that civil servants kneeled on the activists backs for a very long time, while the activists were already lying on the floor with their faces fixed.
In the middle of this scenario, Mrs. Windischmann (Head of Region West DB Real Estate) did not let herself miss the opportunity to enter the house and thus demonstrate her power. With this relentless eviction, the 1,5 week revitalization of the previously vacant property is abruptly ended. [Read More]

Cologne: Police invades the Elster

Police invades Elster 230 and provokes escalation

After Deutsche Bahn yesterday filed a complaint against the occupation of Vogelsanger Str. 230 according to its own statement, the police today gained access to the Elster 230 and recorded personal details of individuals. All this happens against the background that next Monday talks are to take place between the city and DB, as we learned today.
As a result of unconfirmed sources from the mayor’s office, we also learned that the mayor is now also trying to persuade DB to negotiate with us. There the opinion is represented that the DB should hear at least our offers, before other steps would be introduced.
In this context, DB’s approach is becoming increasingly incomprehensible to us: “There is contact with a mediator – the city – who has to be taken seriously, also by DB. DB announces that it basically approves of our idea of use and at the same time it creates the ground for individual activists who work directly for it to be prosecuted. We ask ourselves what DB expects of itself from the criminalisation of individuals, at a time when X people happen to be in the house,” says Anna Meise. [Read More]