Berlin: Manifestation against the eviction process of Køpi Wagenplatz

A home doesn’t always need four brick walls, and spaces sometimes come on wheels.

Køpi wagenplatz is synonymous with a way of life that attempts to exist autonomously and self determinedly, offering a clear and visible answer to a dominant culture of property as status that shuts its front door on community, neighbourhood and solidarity.

On the 10th of June the trial against this structure will take place. The “legal” existence of this self-organized project, as various other houses in Berlin, is being decided from people who have only one priority: to serve the interest of the capital, the landlords, the real estate companies. Our position is to make clear that not only we’ll defend every threatened project but we stand for the self determination of our existence and our life. We do not recognize their institutions but we want to be present to every decision that is taken for us, without us. [Read More]

Berlin: Analysis, Tips and Tactics – Don’t wait until it’s too late

Køpi and Rigaer94 are calling for the “Don’t wait until it’s too late” Demo, may 15th on Gendarmenmarkt.

It should be a strong and dynamic demo, not waiting for the next eviction date. There have been many evaluations and analysis of our demos in the last years, enough so to succeed a few times in breaking out of our usual behaviour and winning back some potential for action. We’re hoping for our demos to be good for more than just being seen and heard, or blocking something. It’s about creating collective moments, moments where we can find together in the street, moments of breaking with normality, getting over mass inertia and snapping the social reigns. Moments were we can recognize and experience our collective strength. Not as an event but with the goal of creating an instant which connects us with other points in a timeline of radical praxis and building on them. Moments from which a dynamic can grow, where it’s possible to join spontaneously, where people can dare to try new things and gain experience. In order not to turn this quest into our own impasse it’s necessary to always rethink and adjust our approach and break out of habits and routines. As a base we gathered some analysis and suggestions here. [Read More]

Berlin: rally against gentrification

UPDATE: event is postponed due to bad weather conditions!

Gentrification is becoming more and more prevalent in the area of Neukolln. From the restaurants in the so called “Kreuzkolln” area, to the bars on Weserstrasse; from the “Karstadt” at Hermannplatz to all over around Schillerkiez. The newest eyesore of the luxury development under construction “Kalle Neukolln,” brings the issue of gentrification even closer to our neighborhood.
As soon as the German government dismissed the rent cap, construction seems more pervasive than ever before; clear indications that rent increases and displacement has already begun.
On Friday 07.05.21, in our neighborhood, along Braunschweiger Str. and Richardstr. we are organizing ourselves, collaborating together for a self-organized kiez! We invite you to come to meet, dance, and play together for a united neighborhood!
All soli donations will be against repression for a person without papers

Against the gentrification, in solidarity with threatened house projects, let’s take back the streets! [Read More]

Berlin: Køpi Weekend of Protest

Køpi calls for friends and allies from around the world to meet in Berlin on the 15th and 16th of May for a weekend of protest. As Køpiplatz (trailer park) faces the most serious eviction threat to date, Køpi stands united to fight for our homes and families. Køpi has been a DIY project in the heart of Berlin offering living space for people in the house and trailer park for more than 30 years. It also continues to be a home for collectives, events, and creative energy since the day the first door was broken open. We will not give up our way of life for some state backed developers! When the law wants to take our homes away, it’s time to break the law!
The alleged owner of Køpi, Startezia GmbH, is just another example of how our homes and autonomous communities are destroyed by anonymous postbox companies that care only about profit and not about people. Køpiplatz does not face the threat of eviction alone. Other Berlin projects, Potse, Rigaer 94, and Queer Wagenplatz Mollies are also in immediate danger. In the last year alone, crucial left-wing places like Liebig 34, Syndikat, Meuterei, Diesel A, Sabot Garden and G17a have already been evicted. [Read More]

Berlin: Demonstration – 6 Months Undead – Liebig 34 is Everywhere

Friday 9 April 2021 – 16:00, rally at Dorfplatz (Friedrichshain), Rigaerstr. Ecke Liebigstr
Saturday 10 April 2021 – 12:00, demonstration from Dorfplatz.

Six months since Liebig 34, as the constellation of the haus on the corner of Liebigstrasse and Rigaerstrasse, ceased to exist. Six months since years of struggle culminated in an eviction in the morning, a riot in the evening, countless other acts of solidarity -including an attack on the ringbahn which left it out of service for days- and ultimately the loss of a global symbol of anarcho-queer-feminism.

But six months on and Liebig lives; in Bristol where last week a demonstration -following the kidnap and murder of Sarah Everard by a Metropolitican police officer- against gendered violence and a new authoritarian policing bill escalated into a night of violence against the police; in London where the same struggle resulted in the occupation of a disused police station; in Mexico City on International Women’s day, where militant feminists broke down the fence surrounding the National Palace and set fire to the riot cops’ shields; in the last week in Berlin where the eviction of Meuterei and the ongoing threat to Rigaer 94, Potse, Koepi Wagenplatz and other projects saw demonstrating and attacks. With the haus gone Liebig is at once nowhere and everywhere. [Read More]

Berlin: Køpi taking the threat seriously

Statement – 22.03.2021
Our current situation:

At February 4th we received a formal letter filed in court from Startezia GmbH to vacate the Køpi Wagenplatz (aka Køpiplatz) by February 28th 2021. After more than 20 years, Startezia GmbH thinks they can force us to leave Køpiplatz but of course we have not left, and we are unwilling to give up our homes. Until now the first court date has not been set, but it is definitely coming sooner rather than later. We have been under threat of sale or eviction before, but this time, as gentrification and new construction surround us, we believe the risk to be more serious than ever before. [Read More]

Berlin: Defend Meuterei!

The best place is still at the bar – The best place is still on the street

On March the 25th the kneipecollective Meuterei is facing eviction, after almost 2 years without a contract.

Traversing a period where Berlin is facing a big transformation and the autonomous infrastructures a great attack, places as Meuterei, are necessary.

They are necessary for the people of the neighborhood who cannot afford the price list of the new posh bars, for the people of the scene who need a meeting point to socialize and politicize, for young people who seek for moments outside parent’s and teacher’s controls, for homeless people who need a place to rest without cops and security controls, for people who do not get pressured or kicked out if they dont buy. [Read More]

Berlin: Demo Freedom for all prisoners affected by repression in Barcelona

Monday 22 March 2021, 16:00
Meeting point: Delegació del Govern a Alemanya
Regierung von Katalonien – Vertretung in Deutschland, Friedrichstrasse, 185. 10117 Berlin

On February 27, 2021, 8 anarchist comrades* were arrested during the riots in Barcelona, as a result of the protests that have been going on since the arrest of Pablo Hasél. All of them are currently in pre-trial detention without bail. They are accused of criminal organization, attempted murder, unlawful demonstration, attack on authority, damage and public disorder. All this as a consequence of a fire being set at one of the vans of the riot police of the Guardia Urbana of Barcelona, a police organization that has a long history of torture and violence. The media, as a propaganda tool of the State, are justifying the repression against our comrades and infusing fear to stop self-organization and dismantle the protests.

After the Pandora and Piñata police set-ups, it is obvious that we are once again facing an operation to repress an ideological current contrary to capitalist interests. They are condemned because they are anarchists. In this type of set-up, the accusation of belonging to a criminal organization or terrorism is something that is being used to create an internal enemy and justify repression. This allows them to judicialize our lives through police harassment, raids, violation of our personal and political spaces, visits to penitentiary centers, etc. Through this they intend to wear us down psychologically and economically, and thus disarticulate our struggles. [Read More]

Germany: The Forest Occupation Movement – Tactics, Strategy, and Culture of Resistance

Lignite mining, express highways, gravel mining, parking decks, lime pits, and candy factories all have something in common that might not be obvious at first glance. Capitalists need to cut down forests to make way for them. But all around Germany, people are mobilizing to stop them. Over the past decade, forest occupations and forest defense actions have proliferated to such a point that we can now reflect on the movement as a whole.

Since February 26, 2021, people have been occupying a forest near Ravensburg called Altdorfer Wald. A gravel pit is threatening the forest’s existence and some activists who had earlier built climate camps and tree houses in the inner city of Ravensburg decided to live in the forest to protect it. At the moment this occupation is not facing eviction.

On the day of the occupation near Ravensburg, all the way at the other end of Germany, police began the eviction of an occupied inner-city forest. In Flensburg, in October 2020, people had begun building tree houses and platforms to save the trees, which were slated to be cut down to make way for a hotel and parking deck. A matter of days before the end of the legal cutting season, the investors sent cold-blooded mercenaries with chainsaws to attack the trees despite the risk to activists. The city politics rewarded the investors’ misdeeds by ordering more police to attack and evict the occupation at the very moment that Flensburg was one of the COVID-19 mutation hotspots in Germany.
[Read More]

Berlin: Fire protection inspection today at Rigaer94

This morning an inspection of Rigaer94 by the responsible official for building supervision/fire protection of the district office Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg took place. As we had previously announced, this independent expert inspected all the rooms of the building without the protection of the Berlin cops and without feeling threatened.

As suspected by us and now also confirmed, our house is not in a condition that makes an evacuation necessary due to fire protection. The official has also not identified any deficiencies that we cannot remedy ourselves. As has been clearly stated several times: Our own safety is important to us and we do not need cops or self-declared “owners” or “property managers” or any party to “protect” us or our neighbors from us.

The report is not yet in our hands, but it will certainly be in the hands of the Senator of the Interior when he commits political suicide with his invasion on Thursday. [Read More]

Berlin: Rigaer 94 – What‘s the price of this shithole?

Berlin, March 2021: A conflict, in which there will be no other option but to take a stand, escalates. This is not about fire safety. This argument is only a masquerade. Those ruling try to make the public believe in the morality of their actions and to create a spectacle. We have repeatedly stated that an independent fire safety expert can walk through the building with us at any time, as it happened in 2016 and November 2020. As this has been ignored, it is obvious that this mission is about the eviction and destruction of Rigaer94 as she has been existing for 30 years. It intends nothing more but a siege and a gradual transformation into a destroyed, uninhabitable house controlled by fences and security gates. It is an attempt to evict us. Those responsible chose March 11th and 12th, 2021 as kick-off. This attempt will meet our fierce resistance! [Read More]

Berlin: Rigaer94 – A thunderstorm is coming

As already explained in our last text from Friday (1), we expect from now on a bigger operation against our house. The initially ridiculous fire safety issue has led to developments that put the continued existence of Rigaer94 as a (partially) occupied space in the highest danger. We would like to explain what happened legally, what we expect concretely and what we can do now to defend this place and the idea behind it.

New judgment regarding the legal representation and the house management

During the last attack on our house in the summer of 2020, the duo of Luschnat and Bernau gathered extensive information about the house. Despite court orders in force at the time, which had unanimously declared their powers of representation for Lafone Ltd. invalid, the police task force had given the two access to large parts of the house. Pretext of the whole action were search warrants for two dwellings because of alleged social fraud and the search for a laser pointer. Luschnat and Bernau, who were involved in the operation, used the information they had obtained to compile a list of alleged fire safety deficiencies. Police also documented the house with this in mind. [Read More]