London: The Autonomous Cafe & Bookshop returns

By: sisulscz - December 16th, 2022  Filed under: Communique

The Autonomous Cafe & Bookshop is re-opening this Wednesday [Dec 14] at 88 Hardinge Street, Shadwell. It will continue to provide liberated coffee and food on a pay-what-you-can basis, and serve as a warm bank for the increasing numbers of people unable to access heating. Doors will open from 2pm, and there will be an open mic from 6pm onward, with all funds raised shared among those working at the cafe, and used to contribute to the project.

“People are fucking dying. In times of crisis, environmental, economic or otherwise, there’s a choice to be made. We reject the servile passivity which brought us to this point. We hope you’ll join us in doing the same, in expressing your own solidarity and resilience.
[Read More]

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London: autonomous bookshop & cafe to open on Westminster Bridge Road

By: fawda - November 9th, 2022  Filed under: News

[update: court case Autonomous Cafe & Bookshop on november 25th]

Winter is coming, and that means the autonomous shelter season is upon us once again. Last year a St. Mungo’s hostel in Gray’s Inn Road was occupied from December to April, before exploding into a small network of interlinked shelters across Central and East London. The Autonomous Shelters Network is already back in action in solidarity with the houseless community at an undisclosed number of locations across the city.

This Wednesday will see the opening of the Autonomous Cafe & Bookshop in a former ‘necropolis station’ at 121 Westminster Bridge Road as part of the Autonomous Winter Shelter Network. It will be serving liberated coffee for pay-what-you-can from 2pm, with an open mike from 6 till 8pm. All money raised will be profitshared amongst people working in the cafe, or donated to helping finance the project. [Read More]

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London: Settling into area 51!

By: sisulscz - October 24th, 2022  Filed under: Communique

Monday and Tuesday have been spent tentatively awaiting first contact which still hasn’t happened and slowly but surely we’re setting up some basic infrastructure like a kitchen area and a tool area!

Before getting in here we made a compass for this place and sanctuary was one of the main ideas that it started pointing to. It’s hard to move at this slower pace and it often hard to move at this tempo, consciously slowing things down.
[Read More]

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London: “Fuck the bosses:” evictions exceeded by new occupations by Autonomous Shelter Network

By: fawda - April 15th, 2022  Filed under: Communique, News

The eviction of the winter shelter on Gray’s Inn Road on April 7th and 2 other longer-lasting squats in London have lead to approximately 5 more locations being opened and brought back into use by houseless and precarious persons to provide food, clothes and shelter within our community. The disused buildings were occupied and activated by mixed collectives of former rough sleepers, anarchists from the NFA Queer Punx, Amsterdam-based Anarcha-Feminist Group, and members of Resist Anti-Trespass.

The buildings form part of the Autonomous Shelter Network – a mutual aid, mutual respect association dedicated to direct housing and the provision of food and necessities. It is an affiliation of non-hierarchical, horizontally organised groups that are self-organised by community members without the state, business or charities. The locations and exact number of residences has not been disclosed to protect the residents privacy. The shelters are self-organised by residents who determine set and organisational style amongst themselves, with one shelter’s motto being “fuck the bosses”. [Read More]

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London: “Don’t worry, we’re autonomous”. Winter shelter evicted

By: fawda - April 7th, 2022  Filed under: Communique, News

Around 30 people have been evicted from an autonomously organised shelter in North London. At 9am on Thursday 7th April agents of the National Eviction Team and notorious eviction magnate Andrew Marsh, smashed their way through barricades to enforce a High Court writ despite repeated attempts by the occupiers to enter into dialogue with the property’s owners, OneHousing, to negotiate a peaceful and orderly handover.

The former St. Mungo’s hostel on Grey’s Inn Road has housed a community of vulnerable adults since it was squatted in December last year, including a woman six months pregnant with twins and many people who the care system has categorically failed to support through the winter. The eviction comes only days after the Severe Weather Emergency Protocol for London was activated, with freezing temperatures predicted for later in the week. There are no planning permission requests logged with Camden council for the property, and it will now most likely remain empty until its inevitable conversion into unaffordable housing. [Read More]

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London: Autonomous Winter Shelter evicted

By: sisulscz - April 7th, 2022  Filed under: Announcement

The Autonomous Winter Shelter [previously on S!N] was evicted April 7.

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London: mansion occupied and evicted on Belgrave Square, owned by a russian oligarch

By: fawda - March 14th, 2022  Filed under: Communique, News

[update: all the squatters arrested on 15 march for occupying the house are been released on 16 march]

Russian Elite’s – You Occupy Ukraine, We Occupy You
We Are Anarchists. We Occupy this property in protest against Putin and his world. This mansion is owned by a Russian Oligarch (Oleg Deripaska), Complicit in Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Do we need to remind you why Putin Sucks?
The invasion of Ukraine is only the latest episode in a long series, from the support of Assad in Syria to the neo-nazi Wanger militia assistanting dictatorship, concentration camps for LGBT+ people, ecosides, brutal wealth inequality, far right troll farms and so on.

By Occupying this mansion, We want to show solidarity for the people on Ukraine but also for the people of Russia who never agreed to this madness.
We want to show our sympathy to the brave protesters who have been in the belly of the beast, and suffer unjust imprisonment for staying up to Putin.

Finally a few words for the elites here in the UK, who have been Putins Minions for years. You received bribes, you managed Oligarch’s property, you even adopted Putin’s authoritarian attitude to protest and decent. FUCK YOU TOO. [Read More]

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London: Learn how to use the radar.squat.net events calendar

By: fawda - January 24th, 2022  Filed under: News

New online workshop, saturday 29 january 2022, from 13:00 to 15:00 (UK time) https://squ.at/r/8kgw. By popular demand, a workshop for those who missed the one from 15 january, during the the Kill The Bill demo.

London is a radical city, full of events taking place, but people don’t know where the hell to find them unless they’re already part of certain groups on facebook and the like.
Social media websites rely on people becoming part of social circles and targeting people based on their interests. But it’s left to the algorithms as to whether you might see an event or activity come up. Even your searches are affected by these algorithms.

The number of people that have arrived in London not knowing what’s going on or where to find radical/anarchist events is somewhat shameful. And the thing is that a resource already exists, and is put to great use in many locations across the globe.
Radar (radar.squat.net) is a great resource, a really powerful events calendar that people can use to find events, and to advertise them to people that are interested and looking (rather than spamming thousands of people on social media that won’t pay it no mind). However it is hardly used in London, or in the UK, compared to other European countries. [Read More]

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London: Update from Autonomous Winter Shelter

By: sisulscz - December 20th, 2021  Filed under: News

Good morning everyone, I hope you’re all well. 115 Grays Inn road (an old stmungos hostel, now taken over by one housing and the Riverside group) has been taken over by a group of people looking out for others safety and well-being, in protest to the housing crisis and opened it to the homeless. We have loads of rooms that need furnishing, as well as kitchen equipment of all sorts. Can anyone help please by dropping down any donations? If any groups want to send your guests here for a shower and a bite to eat, a clean change of clothes, then please feel free as that’s why we’re here. Operating on a first come first served basis to keep it fair to all from 10pm to 10am. If no rooms are available, there will ALWAYS be food and a hot drink,clothes and bedding. Thank you any help would be fantastic and greatly appreciated. The work we do is only possible with YOUR help and assistance.

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London: Autonomous Winter Shelter opened in former St. Mungo’s hostel

By: xxx - December 13th, 2021  Filed under: News

Freedom has received the following communique:

There were over 2688 people recorded to be sleeping rough in London on any one night in 2020.

The temperature at night will be cold enough to cause hypothermia for 23 days this month. That’s 23 days where there’s a real possibility that someone sleeping on the street may not wake up.

It doesn’t have to be like this. [Read More]

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London: Report back from School of Trespass

By: sisulscz - November 6th, 2021  Filed under: Communique

Thank you to everyone who joined us on the 16th and 17th October, for joyful Weekend of Resistance!

A squatted building was used to host talks, workshops, foodshares and art. By inviting people to trespass with us, we wanted to show the creative power of trespass. Because one of the features of the PCSC bill is the further criminalisation of trespass. The explicit target of the government is GRT communities who ready face prejudice and oppression. And who can tell how else this anti-trespass legislation will be applied and interpreted? Squatting, rough sleeping, hiking outside of the beaten track, living in a van or a boat, organising free parties, all these practices will be made more difficult. Any form of protest will be repressed with equal brutality and intolerance, another target of the Bill.
[Read More]

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London: TAA celebrates 20 years

By: sisulscz - October 16th, 2021  Filed under: Announcement

This weekend the Temporary Autonomous Arts (TAA) festival squatted a row of derelict buildings in North London to celebrate 20 years of creative requisitioning of disused spaces. The event ran over 3 evenings from last Thursday to the wee late hours of Sunday, and was an open space for all artists to participate and display their works, championing a DIY or die, anticapitalist aesthetic and approach. Attended by hundreds, the programme featured spoken word and performative onstage carnage. There were live shows from Agents of Lexicon, Hot Dog Grrrl and the Sesame Seed Buns, anarchopunk poetry from George F, 2-bit rave from Killdren and Kidziku’s fuzz-bass screamo, a cabaret featuring genderfuck drag from Jizmik Hunt and many more, with the overall culture being explicitly queer, trans-allied and anti-TERF. The works of dozens of artists such as the Nave, oneslutriot, caineruable, Born In Dust amongst many successfully transformed a gutted and collapsing row of buildings into an interactive smorgasbord of visual delights for the scores of delighted revellers who attended. The first major squatted event in London post-COVID besides raves and parties, the TAA represents a cross-over point for squatters, artists and others to reunite and reignite their passion for creative destruction and mutual co-operation under the principle of “don’t be a DICK” – give people the benefit of doubt when it comes to their boundaries, respect other people’s opinions”. The atmosphere was one of carnivalistic return with attendees travelling from across the UK and internationally from the autonomous scene of Europe. The corridors were jam-packed with people who often had not seen one another for years at a time, giving the event the feel of a grand reunion of comrades.
[Read More]

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