Leipzig: Who sows wind, will reap storm

We look back on a long weekend full of determined action against the increasing evictions, against the gentrification and the unbearable cop siege of our neighbourhoods. After two occupied houses had been evicted within a very short time, the anger about social grievances in Leipzig came to a climax once again.

After the squatted house Luwi71 was evicted on Wednesday, a Day X+1 demonstration was called on Thursday. Several hundred people joined the demonstration and expressed their anger at the eviction of the future social center near Eisenbahnstraße. Cops were attacked, barricades were erected and set on fire. Clashes lasted for several hours, during which even a resquat attempt of the Luwi71 was started. The cops tried again and again to disperse the masses, but instead many smaller demonstrations were formed, which drove the clashes forward. Many spectators joined the masses that were repeatedly scattered and yet found each other again. The anger at the police siege and criminalization of Eisenbahnstrasse, including the no weapons zone, was clearly palpable. In the course of the clashes and after several failed attempts by the cops, they began to shoot at random tear gas into the crowd. The fact that here as well as in the following evening ammunition forbidden according the War Weapon Act was used, which was fired also at journalists, probably surprises nobody knowing the Saxonian police. [Read More]

Minneapolis: Open Growth Space evicted

Open Growth Space, an occupied garden project in Minneapolis, is in the process of being destroyed by the landlord right now (September 7)!


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Leipzig: Statement on the demonstration “Uniting Struggles – For a Solidary Neighbourhood!”

In the evening of 5 september, we organized the demonstration “Connecting Fights – For a Solidary Neighbourhood” with the starting point Hildebrandpark in Connewitz.

In our speeches we discussed the processes of evictions in Connewitz and Leipzig. We criticized the new building projects, as they are no longer affordable for many people here and living space is becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. As a result, many people who have lived here for years have to leave the neighborhood. Social networks, structures that have grown over the years and circles of friends are destroyed.

We declared our solidarity with the squatters of the last weeks in Leipzig in the Ludwigstrasse 71 and the Bornaische Strasse 34 and read a greeting of the evicted LuWi squatters inside. A speech expressed our solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement in the so-called United States. We expressly join the Free Them All campaign, which demands the release of all prisoners of the George Floyd Rebellion. [Read More]

Crete: Rosa Nera evicted

Following the police raid and evacuation of Terra Incognita, a 16 years old squat in Thessaloniki, Greece, on 17 August 2020, another squat was raided today, (5 September 2020), this time in Chania, Crete where Rosa Nera squat stood ground since 2004.

Following the police raid, hundreds of people marched in solidarity through the small greek island town in the afternoon and held a public assembly in the evening to decide the next steps of resistance.

Another protest is taking place right now in Chania, while in Exarchia, Athens a solidarity demo to Rosa Nera Squat is also taking place. The mass participation in the protests and assemblies is a clear sign of the Squat’s openness and interconnection with society and the people’s reaction to the plans of turning the historic building into a hotel owned by an Israeli company.

More than 2.000 protesters protest last night in Chania in solidarity with Rosa Nera Squat in a town of 55.000 inhabitants. In Athens many people gathered in solidarity with Rosa Negra at Exarcheia square.

Enough14

Seattle: Police Sweep Mutual Aid Soup Kitchen, Black Bloc Returns Fire

In the morning hours of Tuesday September 1st, Seattle Parks Department and Seattle Police initiated a sweep of unhoused people staying at Cal Anderson Park and the soup kitchen and community center set up in and around the previously abandoned (and now repurposed) shelter-house at the center of the park. Police pushed people out of the area surrounding the shelter house, making several arrests and claiming the park was closed while people could be seen working out and walking their dogs on the other side of the field. Seattle Police also confiscated a cache of shields, as well as spike strips. Seattle Parks employees confiscated tents, clothes and camping gear, only to throw them in a garbage truck, while snacking on food donated for the Shelter House and unhoused people with Seattle Police. Several arrests were made.

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Caen: as long as there are people on the street, we’ll squat!

Demonstration Saturday, September 5, 2 pm.

Since last June 24th, the Calvados prefecture has evicted nine squats in the Caen agglomeration in which about 360 people lived, the majority of which were families with children. The squats on rue Bayet in Mondeville and rue La Varende in Hérouville-Saint-Clair were evicted during the extended winter truce on July 10 with a state of health emergency. Seven other squats have since been evicted: allée du Bosphore in Caen, route de Caen à Ifs, rue Pasteur in Mondeville, rue Desmoueux, Boulevard Guillou, rue Damozanne and rue de la Grace de dieu in Caen.

The Prefecture’s intention is to place a maximum number of people in CRA (Administrative Detention Center) or to assign them to residence, thus putting them under the permanent threat of expulsion from French territory. The policy of repression put in place by the state is intensifying, two Georgians were recently expelled following a squat eviction.

Currently, around 200 people do not have a permanent accommodation solution, some of them benefit from temporary solidarity, others live in tents or in their cars in undignified conditions. [Read More]

Leipzig: Luwi71 evicted

You can take the Luwi from us, but not our dreams

Yesterday on september 2nd the Luwi71 was evicted. At about six o’clock in the morning, cops started trying to enter the house. Thanks to strong barricades, this was not possible with the battering ram. Only chainsaws gave the state authorities access. After about three hours the police announced the end of the operation on Twitter. So the Luwi was empty again and dreams of non-commercial open spaces and cheap housing lay in ruins like the entrance door.
Thanks to the solidarity and vigilance of local residents and a dedicated surveillance system monitoring the movement of the cops in the neighbourhood, the people in the house were all able to flee from the police in time. Nevertheless, four people were picked up near the house and their identities were established. Three people were then temporarily taken to the Dimitroff guard. Two people on suspicion of trespassing. They are therefore accused of having been squatters. The third person because of an open arrest warrant, which is due to an unpaid fine for incorrectly affixing a dog tax stamp. After the money was paid, the third person could leave.
The other two were also able to leave the station around half past ten, but not before DNA was taken from them and their ears measured.
It has been shown that profits and capital are more important than the needs of city dwellers. Private property as the highest value of this system has won once again. Once again the state is unable to provide housing for all people. The needs of the people are secondary in this system. [Read More]

Montpellier: eviction of the Bouisson-Bertrand squat, eviction of shame

The police evicted the Bouisson-Bertrand squat, located rue de la Croix-Verte in the Euromédecine district of Montpellier, on the morning of Monday August 31st. The squat had been hosting up to 200 refugees and asylum seekers for more than a year and a half. Dozens of migrants and activists gathered in front of the Prefecture to ask for emergency re-housing solutions, in vain. The founder of the association Solidarité Partagée, which managed the squat, was arrested this morning and placed in police custody following this sit-in, which lasted all night long.

One of the biggest squats in Montpellier, for several months under threat of eviction.

The association Solidarité Partagée was created three years ago by Samuel Forest, President, and Lilian Moutonnet, Secretary General. It first occupied the site of the Château de Leyris, near the Saint-Roch train station, for nine months. But faced with unsatisfactory sanitary conditions and the threat of eviction, the association moved in January 2019 to a building belonging to the Bouisson-Bertrand foundation, located in rue de la Croix-Verte. [Read More]

Athens: 10, 100, thousands of squats. One year of resistance against state terrorism

Today marks one year since the armed hooded men of Chrysochoidis invaded the refugee squat of Spirou Trikoupi 17 and the neighboring Transito squat. It was early in the morning when they forcibly pulled out families with young children from their beds–people who after much hardship and suffering had found a place to grow roots again in these buildings. They took them from their home and distributed them in miserable camps to live in the dirt and with indifference in canvas tents. Since then, a barrage of state terrorist attacks on refugee and political squats has led to evictions, snatching of people, beatings, and arrests. The refugee squats have functioned for many years as unprecedented experiments of practical anti-racism and anti-fascism, self-organization, and solidarity. These spaces have given thousands of people the opportunity to regain their stolen autonomy and the right to define their own lives away from human guards and charity contractors. And almost all of them were evicted. Families with babies, single women, LGBTQI+ people, the sick and disabled, survivors of torture were all brutally detached from their daily lives and relationships and were trapped in nothing but state mercilessness. Political squats that formed cells of social action in neighborhoods, challenging the prevailing ideas of tourism, private property, and commercialization, which turned cities into concrete class pyramids of solitary depravity and social rivalry, were also evicted. [Read More]

Padua: Eviction of Bios Lab-Spazio Autogestito

Today (August 18) Bios Lab-Spazio Autogestito in Padua was evicted. Yet another eviction, yet another attack on an autonomous place of political, social and cultural production. Since 2013, Bios provided space for political, artistic and cultural projects used by hundreds of self-organised people, as well as many other things such as the free legal support office for asylum seekers.
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Thessaloniki: Political statement of the squat Terra Incognita. International call for solidarity

In the morning of 17th of August Terra Incognita gets TEMPORARILY evicted by the repressive forces of neoliberalism. Police forces intrude in the building and conduct researches for hours and confiscations. Days after the eviction the squat still remains open with cops celebrating TEMPORARILY their capability of violating every corner of our liberalized grounds.

For over 16 years Terra Incognita consituted a meeting place for hundrends of people of the struggling social basis. With constant events, direct acts, demonstrations and conflicts Terra Incognita was present in moments of the violent struggle against the violence of the state, the benefits of capitalistic monopolies, against the violating authority of fascism and patriarchy, against any type of discrimination and speciesism. In the grounds of the self-organised structures of self-education, solidarity and mutual aid of the squat all the “known-unknown” strugglers of freedom met and will continue to meet. Liberating and equallity-based relationships were constructed, subversive plans and operations, dreams that day by day found and still find a space of moral and physical substance. For 16 years the squat proves itself to be the flesh of the flesh of the multiform struggle against any type of authority and opression, without prioritizing or distinguishing the means that contribute to the spreading of libertarian ideas and the organization of social and class-conscious counter attack. Because for us this is liberation. [Read More]

Gap: Cesaï violently and illegally evicted

On Wednesday 19 August, at six o’clock, police officers broke down the doors of the rooms of the inhabitants of Césaï, the Gap autonomous social centre, with a battering ram. They gather everyone in a courtyard and check their identities. This is the beginning of the eviction from Cesaï.

Results: 43 people outside, 20 staying in campsites, 2 boarded at the station. 43 exiled and homeless people who barely had time to take their belongings and collect food before Cesaï was walled up. 43 people on the Place Saint Arnoux, in front of the Prefecture, soon joined by militants.

A camp is being organized while waiting for a solution that will not come from the Prefecture, which is increasingly afraid of the famous “vacuum effect”. While waiting for a place to sleep and to put down their bags, families, young migrants, Dublin cases and homeless young people are all astonished to find themselves homeless in a few hours. [Read More]