Athens (Greece): Statement of CityPlaza Squat against the threat of eviction

City Plaza will not bend / Resist the “immigration & passport bureaus”, the frightful flags of states and diplomacy war weapons factories

The court order for the evacuation of the Refugee Accommodation Space City Plaza is the latest scene in the repressive management of refugees and the solidarity movement. From the closure of the borders to the shameful EU-Turkey deal, from the prisonlike camps to the evacuation of squats, a policy of casting refugees as a peculiar enemy is being articulated. [Read More]

Wuppertal (Germany): Call for solidarity with City Plaza and all other refugee squats in Greece

Hands off from City Plaza and all other Refugee Squats!

At June 7th, 2017 the news came out that a court ordered the eviction of City Plaza Refugee Accommodation and two other refugee squats in Athens. Projects like City Plaza succeed in where the Greek government and other EU member states fail; a self-determined life, a life with dignity for those who traveled to a putative Europe under extreme hard conditions. A life where it doesn’t matter which papers people have but instead a life where people can live together in a self-organised way.

Since the former City Plaza hotel was squatted more than a year ago, after the building was empty for several years, more than 1500 people lived in the building. 400 at any one time. Among them where many refugees and supporters from many countries. While EU member states closed their borders, sharpened their asylum laws, detaining and deporting more and more refugees, people in Athens have buildup self-organised projects like City Plaza together with refugees.

In the past year repression against refugees and supporters has increased with evictions, arrests and police violence in various EU member states. Some of the squats where refugees lived in a self-organised way were evicted, for instance in Thessaloniki, Athens and Belgrade. Again and again there are reports from police violence against refugees in France, Croatia, Hungary and other European countries. Since the EU/Turkey deal refugees are being detained at the Greek islands and deported back to Turkey. But also in Germany more and more refugees are being detained and deported. [Read More]

Bochum: Cops threaten to evict squat on Herner Str. 131

squatbodemo_TagX_BochumIn Bochum, Germany there is a growing solidarity with the people who squatted an empty building in the Herner Str 131. Police authorities are not so amused. They threaten to evict the building. Activists ask people to be ready for eviction alerts. A demo is planned and decentral solidarity actions are appreciated.

On the 19th of May a group of people squatted an empty building at the Herner Str 131 in Bochum, Germany. The cops came to the house but did not interfere. Over the weekend there was a lot of contact with neighbours and supporters. The activists organised a barbeque party in their garden and lots of people came to discuss the occupation. Apart from places to live, the squatters want to establish a social center in the building.

The tenanst association in Bochum published a support message, saying that more than 7000 apartments are still empty in the German city. They continued their message by saying that people with low wages have more and more problems to find an affordable place to live and that half of the refugees are still living in refugee shelters (lager). The tenants association concluded their message by saying that they wish the owner and the police will not evict the squatters and instead should talk with the squatters. [Read More]

Greece: Upcoming eviction of No Border Social Center Lesvos and Call-Out for activists

nbk_lesvos_greeceNo Border Kitchen Lesvos needs your support! Callout for people in November and December.

We from No Border Kitchen Lesvos (NBK) are going to need people joining us on the island in October, November and December. After holiday season, with the start of the new semester for many people and with the approaching winter we will need helping hands from end of October.

Additionally we got an unpleasant visit from the cops tuesday. According to them our Social Center will be evicted in 5 days. This would make the 4th eviction this year that we have to face.

At the moment we (still) have two main projects. One is cooking for the people who refuse to stay in Moria camp and prefer to sleep rough in the forest instead. The other one is our social center . Everyday a lot of people visit us there to hang out, talk, eat and meet each other. Of course thats not all…we also stand with the people protesting on a weekly basis in Lesvos against the inhuman conditions in Moria camp and for freedom of movement. [Read More]

Hungary: The plight of a Budapest city park

varosliget1In the last few days the Hungarian media has been full of stories about clashes among three groups in Budapest’s famed park Városliget (City Grove): the so-called “grove defenders” (ligetvédők), members of a private security firm recruited from skinheads hanging around football stadiums to protect the demolition/construction crew, and the Hungarian police.

Városliget is one of the oldest city parks in the world, dating to around 1810, although work on it continued through most of the nineteenth century. By now Városliget definitely needs a face-lift to restore it to its former beauty. But what’s going on right now, in the opinion of the grove defenders, is the destruction of the park as a public space for recreation as well as a source of respite from all the stone and brick that makes up Budapest, especially its Pest half. It is being turned into a “museum quarters.”

Viktor Orbán, most likely at the suggestion of the director of the Museum of Fine Arts, László Baán, decided on the creation of a museum quarters. But the idea of clustering museums was in reality just attractive packaging of what amounted to an eviction notice. Several galleries currently housed in the former royal palace must move because Viktor Orbán wants to put the core of his government where in his opinion it belongs, the ancient seat of the Kingdom of Hungary. [Read More]

Belo Horizonte (Brazil): The feminist squat Tina Martins threatened with eviction

 

On March 8th, the feminist movement Olga Benário squatted an empty building in the center of Belo Horizonte, with the hope of turning it into a crisis shelter for female victims of violence. Since then, the building is occupied as a place of living for dozens of women, and holds every day gatherings, assemblies, culturals and political events. It also works as a self-managed crisis shelter: a psychological and medical reception center for more or less 200 women who are homeless or victims of violence.

[Read More]

Oslo: Vestbredden Vel Vel, one of the Scandinavian’s oldest existing squat, under threat of eviction

from: https://resiste.squat.net/?p=2927

The living-and-working collective Vestbredden Vel Vel which resides in Hausmannsgate 40 in Oslo, is under threat of eviction.

Oslo municipality are close to ending a long term sales process that, if it is approved by the city council which everything points to, will result in eviction and demolition of Scandinavia’s oldest existing squat.

You are more than welcome to write back if you publicly want to support us or in other ways contribute! [Read More]

Notre-Dame-Des-Landes (France): Communique on the meeting with the Calais hunger strikes

This Wednesday 23rd March, four 2012 hunger strikers from Nantes, accompanied by four activists, met with the Calais hunger strikers. Here is their testimony:

“We are here in support, in sympathy, in bringing our experiences, but certainly not to bring advise.

Compared to theirs, our experiences were very light: they have been on hunger strike since March 2nd, isolated in the southern part of the jungle that was destroyed, with a background noise of bulldozers flattening rubble, and the polce that surround them. [Read More]

Nantes, France: 20,000 people protest Notre-Dame-Des-Landes airport construction

400 tractors, 1,000 cyclists and 20,000 marchers turned up on the ring road on the periphery of Nantes to protest the Notre-Dame-Des-Landes (NDDL) proposed airport, and support the ZAD ongoing occupation.

Protesters argue that building a new international airport is a climate crime, adding to and encouraging flight carbon emissions.

But also it turns productive agricultural land into non-productive fields, tarmac and terminals, while also endangering biodiversity and the habitat of 130 protected species. Surveys of the site have identified at least five legally protected species that have not been taken into account by the project records made ​​available to the investigation and related prefectural orders. [Read More]

The Hague: Eviction of Autonoom Centrum approaching

Ontruiming_Autonoom_Centrum_Den_Haag_op_komstEviction of Autonoom Centrum in The Hague is getting closer. The AC lost a long legal procedure in which the judge declared that AC can be evicted beginning January 30th. After the verdict, AC went into discussions with the owner of the building in order to reach an agreement, but the conversation went nowhere. It looks like AC will be evicted at the end of this month.

Last summer, we received a letter stating that we have to vacate the premises by 30 January 2016. This letter did not come from the building’s owner, but from the renter. This requires further explanation; the building which AC occupies is property of Pubstone BV, a company that owns many bars. Pubstone BV rents the building to InBev, the largest beer brewer in the world, worth billions. Inbev subsequently rented the building to a pub operator. Even when the building was abandoned and when it was squatted in 2010, InBev continued renting the building. InBev terminated its rental agreement and must in their own words hand the building over empty to Pubstone. Afterwords, InBev’s lawyers sent us a letter saying that we have to vacate the premises by January 30 2016. We did not agree to these terms and filed a lawsuit. The judge ruled in favor of InBev, despite the fact that the building would again stand vacant after the eviction and the verdict was that AC can be evicted from 30 Janaury 2016. [Read More]

Notre-Dame-Des-Landes, France: 9th January – Why you should come + logistic precisions

Why did the date of the call-out get moved forward?

Initially we announced a big mobilisation to take place on 16th January without knowing if Vinci and the governement would have the outrageous audacity to restart the procedure for an immediate eviction of the inhabitants and farmers of the ZAD, in the middle of January. We found out that they will be taken to court again on 13th January. That’s why we decided to move the date of the demonstration to 9th January and to double our determination.

- Why is it crucial to take part in this demonstration?

The trial on 13th January is an unprecedented attack against the resisting inhabitants and farmers of the ZAD. It’s an attack in the same style as the attacks in autumn 2012, though it won’t be through a police intervention, at least not for now. AGO-Vinci is desperate to see the official locals leave, threatening them with immediate eviction, seizure of their property and their livestock, and sentencing them to exorbitant daily fines. [Read More]

France: Against the airport and the Cop21 – Attacks in solidarity with the ZAD of Notre-Dame-des-Landes

While the multinational Vinci is an official partner of the “COP21 Solutions: Come live the climate experience” exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris, providing two conferences there (one of which is co-presented by an executive director of Veolia), to explain to the public at which point their approach is “green”, sustainable and eco-responsible; its Airport of Grand Ouest subsidiary has just relaunched eviction procedures against all inhabitants of the ZAD, to be able to start building its “Environmentally High Quality” airport.

Faced with this obsession of concreting our living spaces, a group of paint-artists meanwhile decided in the night of Friday 4th to Saturday 5th December 2015 to cheerfully redecorate the gloomy greyish SOGEA Atlantique building, another of multiple Vinci subsidiaries, in Saint-Herblain [Nantes outskirts]. [Read More]