Ljubljana: Mačjak under eviction threat

Statement released on 31st of july by Mačjak, the squatted anarcha-queer space in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Eviction festival to take place on 15th of august 2023:

After little more than a year of constructing, organizing and maintaining the space known as Mačjak we are faced with an eviction notice coming into effect on the 1st of august.

Mačjak was always imagined as a temporary place for the anarcha-queer community here in Ljubljana to explore its means and desires. It was our chance to try squatting for the first time, after a 16-year void of political occupations in our city. Most of us who started the project were evicted in january 2021 from Autonomous Factory ROG (squatted in 2006) and moved into a shared space A-infoshop (built in 2003) in Metelkova (squatted in 1993). We needed to see what we can do by ourselves and what we really want for ourselves – what we first wanted was a small garage to host our our political art projects, but this initial space was in fact already occupied by homeless sleepers. So we took a part of a small building, it was trashed. One couldn’t even see the floor, let alone lay on them. we figured this was a nice place. There was no access to electricity, but we managed to open the water. The first summer we swept the walls off the floor and filled in the holes where electricity cables had been ripped out. We fixed the doors. It quickly became a place to spend time in, and we invited other groups to meet here. it soon became a place where we could work and party, where we could feel safe even though the place got attacked a few times. It became a place where we could build our community and nurture the anarcha resistance. [Read More]

Ljubljana: statement from the Anarchist Initiative in support of the new autonomous center PLAC

It gives us great joy to welcome the establishment of a new autonomous space PLAC in Ljubljana that started today with the communal-political occupation of the empty, derelict, and publicly-owned building on Linhart Street!

We see this occupation as a protest against the existing social order and as a concrete answer to the daily worsening of social circumstances and problems such an order creates.
Occupation is a political act of emancipation and direct action that addresses important social issues, pertaining to all of us and our collective futures. The housing crisis, high rent, and lack of non-commercial spaces for creativity and action are but a few of these issues. Indirectly, it also addresses rampant corruption, social inequality, and the distribution of the Commonwealth. The newly occupied publicly-owned building, that is managed by the DUTB (‘bad bank’ organization) quite literally represents the money we all paid for the great bank bailout of 2012. Back then, the name of the game was a shameless transfer of wealth from the have-nots to the haves. With this occupation, we are returning a small part of that stolen money to the people for communal use. [Read More]

Ljubljana: PLAC, new autonomous zone squatted

Last Saturday, a new autonomous zone was established in Ljubljana, called the Participatory Ljubljana Autonomous Zone (PLAC). The squat is located at 43 Linhartova Street, behind Bežigrad.

Around 13:00 on Saturday 3rd september, around 100 people entered the abandoned building of the former canteen of the Ljubljana Road Company at 43 Linhartova Street and declared the occupied building an autonomous zone. They wrote that they had created “a space for all those who have been sidelined by the socio-political order and deprived of the infrastructure for their cultural and political participation and the realization of their aspirations”. In the hours following the occupation of the empty building, the premises and the surrounding area were cleaned up. [Read More]

Ljubljana: Everyone on the streets. Against the social destruction of the city!

Dear residents of Ljubljana, the whole municipality and all that come here to work, study or because of other obligationas and free-time activities! All are witnesses to the violent intervention of Municipality of Ljubljana (MOL) in the space of Autonomous Factory Rog (AT Rog).

Protest, Friday 22.1.2021 at 18h at Prešernov trg

What happened to the community of AT Rog can happen to many of us. Especially if they do not belong to the rich and property-owning well-off part of society. What happened in Ljubljana can happen in any other town. Violent expulsion of less well-off individuals, families and other communities is written in the fabric of capitalist system of extraction. The so called legal order and the so called rule of law have been exposed many times as instruments that were established mainly in the interest of financial and political elites. Moreover, the state and municipal authorities chose to exploit exactly the moment, when many hardly manage to make ends meet due to changed living conditions as we deal with the issue of basic mental, physical and economic survival. They base themselves in repressive measures, financial punishments and the police apparatus. Any and all political activity outside the parliamentarian arena is forbidden. Schools are closed, rent and other living costs are rising constantly, the workers’ rights are being taken away. They declared war on the people and it is important to understand this. [Read More]

Ljubljana: Stop demolishing autonomous spaces, everyone come to ROG

Call for solidarity

Comrades! Many of you have stayed, fought and loved one of the two squats in Ljubljana. For 15 years Rog was a centre of political activity in the city and in the international movements. Today 19 January 2021, Rog factory was brutally evicted. Many of our comrades were violently beaten and arrested. We are calling for solidarity all around the world. Let’s show the oppressors of all kinds they are messing with the wrong movement!

Statement of Rog factory about eviction

Today, at 7 in the morning, employees of the security company Valina have forcefully entered the spaces of Autonomous factory Rog. Violently, using physical force, they injured some of its users and evicted everybody. Our personal belongings, pets and valuable equipment were left inside, together with 15 years of our dreams, activities, projects, adventures and common experiences. Police has erected fences around Rog and started to beat supporters gathering in support in front of the factory’s gate. In the inside of the complex workers have demolished majority of side structures and smashed windows on the main building that is protected as heritage. At the same time they are taking away, on the unknown location, all the equipment from Rog. More then 10 persons were held in custody, among them some of the injured that need medical help. We do not have access to them and we don’t have information on where all of them were taken. [Read More]

Ljubljana: Autonomous factory Rog evicted

Ljubljana. Slovenia. January 19. 2021. In the early morning hours riot cops showed up at the autonomous factory Rog. They started to evict the squatted facilities without an announcement and without a legal basis.

In 2002 the Municipality of Ljubljana bought the 7,000 square-metres complex with several buildings in “downtown” Ljubljana but never used it. The former bicyle factory was occupied in 2006 and since then it was used as an autonomous social center.

This morning Valina secutity arrived at 07:00am and started to evict the Rog and injured several people during the eviction. The cops started to install fences around the Rog and started to beat people in front of the premises. At least nine people were arrested. Three injured people had to be treated in a hospital.
[Read More]

Slovenia: statement by the Ljubljana Anarchist Initiative in support of autonomous spaces and Radio Študent

Three pillars of autonomous, alternative culture and politics in Ljubljana.

The anarchist movement in Ljubljana has been actively involved in the co-creation of the alternative scene for more than ten years. This includes the Autonomous Cultural Centre Metelkova, the Rog Autonomous Factory and Radio Študent. In a time of neoliberal devastation of the communal, the public and the non-commercial, these spaces represent the rare bright spots that make life in an otherwise increasingly gentrified Ljubljana more bearable, which is why many people have not yet moved out. [Read More]

Ljubljana: Open call of The Autonomous Factory Rog

Against violence of the City Municipality of Ljubljana – for Open Dialogue

The users of the Autonomous Factory Rog are observing the statements and moves of the management of the City Municipality of Ljubljana with concern. By denying dialogue, refusing recognition of users’ activities, with financial sanctions and open threats of eviction, it suggests that the repetition of the 2016 conflict is expected.

Let us remember, at that time the Municipality attempted to vacate the factory premises and establish a construction site in the middle of the night with private security officers, but encountered a large number of users who wanted to protect those premises, in which they developed alternative culture, social and political organization, a sports program and other activities free of charge since 2006. Following up, these users appealed to their adverse possession rights and did not want to leave. The rights were later acknowledged by the district court in Ljubljana. From that moment on until the conclusion of the property rights lawsuit the construction work had to be discontinued. [Read More]

Ljubljana: Call for October Revolution Festival in Autonomous Factory Rog

Dear dead revolutionaries,

the dream has shattered and we are still being frustrated by the currents of history.
It has been one hundred years since the scandalous revolutionary powers of the past rose against their feudal overlords, now known as the October revolution. Countries have been torn apart by war and the lords were struck with raw and violent critiques of the working people. Vengeance was sweet and yet perhaps impotent, the war was loss for all we know.

Our frustrations could be thought of as a deep need for reinterpretation, an indignation, a struggle for social justice, a thirst for change. But in the last hundred years all we had was change. Our cities and our bodies, our discourses and work processes went through innumerable changes both wonderful and terrible – most of them irreversible. Revolution has revealed itself to be an ambiguous and yet fascinating concept.

The time has come to light up the furnaces of Rog once again and to take a stand for and with our dead revolutionary companions in the old factory turned autonomous art and social activist squat. Rog’s vast size, history and the nature of its fight against the municipality make it the perfect ground for a minimundus where we can meet and debate the current questions of the street, by the street. [Read More]

Slovenia: Autonomous Spaces under Threat. For Communal Disobedience – Against Passivity

For the last year the autonomous spaces in the region were deeply marked by a tense athmosphere fueled by constant threats and some serious attacks. In the summer of 2016 the mayor of Ljubljana Zoran Janković ordered the attack of a private security company with neonazis in its ranks on the Autonomous Factory Rog. The community managed to successfully repel the initial attack only to be later confronted with an ongoing and attritive court procedures that threaten to leave individuals with heavy financial and other penalties. In the winter of 2016/17 a new squat Argo in Izola/Isola that had only started with activities was targeted by the machinery of »the bad bank« or BAMC. The latter hired a private security gang which soon after the turn of the year forcefully emptied the squat. Not far away in Koper/Capodistria Inde has been under intense siege since the winter, at first by the orders from BAMC and lately by some enthusiastic local entrepreneurs. Sadly it seems that the battle for Inde is over. Sokolski dom in Novo mesto has been for an entire year dealing with repeating calls from the local autorities to stop with activities and the court procedures are under way. [Read More]

Slovenia: Autonomous spaces under attack, support the struggle!

201701_Inde_Plataforma_KoperCall for solidarity actions for INDE squat in Koper, Slovenia

In the last few years we have seen new autonomous spaces emerging in Slovenia, joining the struggles of older squats all over the country. Along the Slovenian coast, two enormous buildings were occupied until recently. The occupations brought radical politics and different social relations to their environment. Both squats were always open to a variety of projects and initiatives, but had strong anarchist presence and activities as well. The spaces used to be factories, which were destroyed by the brutal privatization.

Right after New Years, ARGO squat in Izola was forcefully evicted. Eviction was preceded by a series of harassments from police and security company, that in some cases resulted in serious bodily injuries and fines for comrades there. The second coastal squat, called INDE, got an eviction notice just a few days ago. We are supposed to leave the premises on January 30. [Read More]

Koper (Slovenia): Statement about the police attack on ARGO activists

Argo_IzolaC.P. Inde strongly condemns the violent police attack on comrades from Argo, which happened on Friday 28/10 2016. Recently we have witnessed repeated attacks on several autonomus communites in Slovenia (Rog, Sokolc, Metelkova). It is clear that with any start of collective creative and critical thinking, there also appears repression. Izola has for long years lacked autonomous cultural venues and has just recently got its own Autonomous Zone Argo. This kind of space is necessary for the development of an active society. Argo is a young collective that still hasn’t blossomed and come to life in full, because power structures immediately cut down the first germs of critical thought. Oppressive authority brutally stamped down on basic human rights of two activists who suffered serious injuries. Both had to seek medical help that the police even refused to provide. Sometimes the fight for a better world has such high price as head concussions and internal bleedings.
To Argo we express the broadest solidarity, because the attack on them is also an attack on every other autonomous community. Only solidarity and mutual aid can bring about a better tomorrow. At the same time we have to fight against the media, which grasped the corrupted story of policemen and demonized our comrades. It has become increasingly clear to whom they serve. Certainly not the people, but rather the capital and power. We must condemn the police violence that has crippled our comrades and we must not remain indifferent or turn the other side. We express our full solidarity with the Argo Collective and we send them a message that in this fight they are not alone. We also strongly condemn any violence against autonomous spaces and communities! They shall not pass! [Read More]