Utrecht: No Border Camp 2024

By: fawda - August 19th, 2024  Filed under: Communique, News

Update from August 20, 2024:

This morning, No Border Camp 2024 started with the occupation of a terrain in Utrecht (a meadow on the Mercatorlaan (directly opposite P&R Papendorp), next to the Amsterdam-Rhine Canal at the Prins Claus Bridge). Until Sunday, several hundred people from the Netherlands and abroad will gather on this terrain to resist the current migration policy through actions, workshops and culture.
Saturday 24 August, there will be a demonstration, starting at the No Border Camp towards the city centre of Utrecht.
Tomorrow afternoon, from 5 p.m., a noise demonstration against the detention and deportation of refugees will take place from the camp at the Judicial Complex Zeist (Kamp Zeist, Richelleweg 13, Soesterberg), where refugee families with children, among others, are locked up.

Kamp Zeist has been a location for many years where refugees are locked up, awaiting deportation or being thrown back on the streets. The site includes a special prison for families with minor children. This is where children such as the recently in the news Mikael (11 years old) and his mother Gohar, who are at risk of being deported to Armenia, are locked up. “Kamp Zeist has been the target of actions against the inhumane refugee policy for years,” says Sasha, spokesperson for the No Border Camp organization, “and tomorrow we will be there again to support imprisoned people and to make a clear voice for the abolition of borders and for freedom of movement for everyone.”

The No Border Camp targets both the increasingly repressive Dutch migration policy and developments at European level, where militarization of borders, pushbacks and other human rights violations are the order of the day. The new Schoof cabinet is adding plans to lock up more refugees, deport more people, make asylum applications more difficult and severely restrict the right to legal assistance.
MiGreat, the Bond Precaire Woonvormen, SOS Humanity, the Transnational Institute (TNI) and Stop Wapenhandel are among those contributing to the camp with workshops. Connections with climate change, racism and women’s and trans struggles are also on the programme.

Previous No Border Camps were held in Rotterdam (2013 and 2022), Wassenaar (2019) and Groningen (2023). [Read More]

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Rotterdam: former school squatted on Catullusweg 11

By: fawda - August 15th, 2024  Filed under: Communique, News

We are not gone, we are still here! After the many threats and an attempt at eviction by the police, they decided to leave because we were ready to resist the eviction with a lot of people. We are still here the next day, and we are not planning on leaving.

Join us in the struggle against capitalism, the state, and all forms of oppression!
Yesterday, we revealed that we have been living at the unused school on Catullusweg 11.

Aside from being a living space, it will also be a space to gather, meet each other, share and sharpen skills, and host events. It will be a place to learn outside of institutionalised education.
We want to create a space where everybody can feel safe, no matter the colour of your skin, sexual orientation, gender, class, or any such characteristic. Our house and common spaces are vegan, because we are also against the oppression of other species.

This is an invitation to come by and organise! [Read More]

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Ghent: Wondelmeersen occupied

By: fawda - July 13th, 2024  Filed under: Communique, News

Since June 20, the summer solstice, the Wondelgemse Meersen have been occupied and declared an autonomous zone!

This nature reserve, 14ha large, is the last continuous piece of wilderness of what was once a vast swamp area in the north of Ghent.

If it were up to transport company De Lijn and politicians such as Zuhal Demir (N-VA) and Lydia Peeters (Open Vld), the Wondelmeersen would be destroyed to make way for a so-called “green” depot for buses and trams. But a “green” depot you don’t build at the expense of valuable green nature. [Read More]

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Amsterdam: Squat on Rokin evicted after celebration of one year of Takland

By: fawda - June 16th, 2024  Filed under: Communique, News

Takland is a year older and we celebrate! With resistance in the form of squatting a new building. After a year full of action, discussion, movies and parties, this new addition to the alley will be the revolutionary art of Amsterdam again. The new squatted building (ground floor Rokin 104) on the corner of Taksteeg/Rokin had been vacant for years and has the same owner (Axel P Nielsen BV) as the already squatted Taksteeg 6.

The police didn’t want to hear anything about it, after promising at 19:00 on Friday that they will not evict, they came later in the evening at 23:30 during our festival with 10 riot cops vans, dog brigade, popo on horses and BraTra to show their teeth. An illegal eviction in Amsterdam, which has not happened since the squatting of the Waldeck Pyrmonkade in January 2022. [Read More]

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Wageningen: Community and eco-squat ‘De Achtertuin’ squats a vacant lot

By: fawda - June 14th, 2024  Filed under: News

13 June 2024, Wageningen – Since Tuesday 11 June, Veerweg 121 has been inhabited by the community and eco-squat ‘De Achtertuin’ (The Backyard). The Wageningen group, together with dozens of activists, has squatted this new terrain to argue for a sustainable and socially just living model. This action is a direct response to the ongoing housing crisis, environmental crisis and growing social inequality in the Netherlands.

Squatting is legit

The squatted lot has been vacant for at least 17 years and is currently owned by a property developer. In the latest plans, which have not been approved, a construction project of expensive owner-occupied homes was proposed. To this day, there are still no concrete and accepted plans for the site. The activists therefore consider it justified to establish their right of residence on this vacant lot. [Read More]

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Amsterdam: Achter Oosteinde 16 squatted. Opening of the Shadia Abu Ghazaleh campus

By: fawda - May 26th, 2024  Filed under: News

Pro-Palestinian protesters open Shadia Abu Ghazaleh Campus of the People’s Free University. Around 14:45, pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched from the Spui to Achter Oosteinde 14 and opened the Shadia Abu Ghazaleh Campus of the people’s Free university in a squatted building.
Today, on May 25, pro-Palestinian demonstrators began their protest on the Spui at 14:00. This demonstration moved through the streets of Amsterdam to Achter Oosteinde 16, where the protesters revealed that a squatted building is being opened to the public as the first campus of the People’s Free University. The Shadia Abu Ghazaleh Campus will be a space of resistance where people can learn from each other and teach each other. The campus is named after one of the first Palestinian women to participate in armed resistance in 1967: “She knew the importance of knowledge and education in the struggle for liberation. […] We will create this space in her legacy,” the protesters say. [Read More]

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Utrecht: Biltstraat 31 squatted and evicted

By: fawda - May 12th, 2024  Filed under: News

This year’s demo Rave voor de Rafelranden took place on 11 May. The building on the Biltstraat was squatted for the demo. The same night, the police evicted the squat and arrested 5 people.

On Saturday afternoon it was announced that the building at Biltstraat 31 in Utrecht has been squatted. The old hotel has been vacant since 2020 and is waiting for new permits that have been refused by the municipality. The squatters have chosen to announce the action today, as they drew attention to the frayed edges of the city today by means of a street rave through the center. With this action, the squatters would like to add a cultural space to the city. [Read More]

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Amsterdam: Building squatted for Housing Day. Gravenstraat 26 resquatted

By: fawda - April 29th, 2024  Filed under: Communique, News

NO HOUSING NO KING

Today, April 27, we come together to celebrate Housing Day (Woningsdag), not Koningsdag (King’s Day). Instead of celebrating the monarchy, we will celebrate the resistance and bravery of everyday people. Kingsday is a day of hypocrisy, where we wear orange plastic crowns to pretend we are a king, while every other day we are struggling to make ends meet. While the royal family bathes in luxury we are struggling to pay for basic necessities like food, energy and housing. Nationalism and the celebrations of the monarchy we see today, work to create false divisions that do not serve us. It draws artificial borders over land and divides us, it breaks the natural tendency of solidarity between people and instead teaches us we should fear one another. [Read More]

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London: “Why we squatted Gordon Ramsay’s pub”

By: sisulscz - April 15th, 2024  Filed under: Announcement, News
chairs and tables inside squat

Freedom News received this statement from the Camden Art Cafe squatters who have liberated Gordon Ramsay’s York and Albany Hotel restaurant in Camden, London:

We are occupying the York and Albany Hotel in Camden as the collective Camden Art Cafe. We aim to open our doors regularly to anyone and everyone, particularly the people of Camden who have been victims of gentrification and parasitic projects like HS2 [squat!net Stop HS2 archives]. We provide free food, drinks, and a space to display their art without the ridiculous red-tape galleries that require people to jump over. We believe all of us and our art deserves dignity.
[Read More]

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London: Lesnes will not be demolished

By: fawda - April 11th, 2024  Filed under: News

Residents are currently occupying a housing estate and are refusing to leave – marching on the council tonight

Residents from the Lesnes estate will protest at Bexley Council on Thursday 11 April evening to demand support in their campaign against Peabody’s planned demolition of their homes. It comes after residents and campaigners have occupied an empty house and appeal for supporters to join them to protect an estate made up of a lot of social housing.
Save Lesnes from demolition

Lesnes Estate residents and campaigners are occupying an empty home on the Lesnes Estate and are demanding that Peabody executive director and leader of the Thamesmead regeneration scheme, John Lewis, agrees to meet residents in person and listen to their demands:

That empty homes are opened up immediately.
That the entire estate is refurbished, not demolished. [Read More]

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Amsterdam: Mokum Kraakt squats former windows in the Red Light District

By: fawda - January 19th, 2024  Filed under: Communique, News

Mokum Kraakt squats on the Dollebegijnensteeg in the Red Light District in solidarity with the sex workers and against the arrival of the erotic center. During a protest against the planned erotic centre, squatting collective Mokum Kraakt announced it has squatted a number of former sex work windows in De Wallen, Amsterdam’s red light district.

The squatters say the windows were squatted in solidarity with sex workers who fight against plans for an erotic centre on the outskirts of the city. Sex work has been a part of De Wallen for over 400 years and sex workers have clearly and repeatedly said they want to stay in the city centre. The people living close to the location of the prospective location of the erotic centre are also against it. And still, mayor Halsema is pushing through her plans. [Read More]

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Amsterdam: two buildings squatted next to Nieuwmarkt

By: fawda - November 26th, 2023  Filed under: Communique, News

We squatted two buildings in light of the Housing Crisis, International Day against Sexist and Sexual Violence, in solidarity with our Palestinian comrades, and we express our anger about fascism taking over the Netherlands.

We revealed two squatted buildings on 22 November, at Krom Boomssloot 45 and 47, in light of the need for housing for our comrades and our sisters.

In light of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on the 25th of November, it is crucial and a priority to open housing where women can feel safer, where we can find each other and grow our resistance together. [Read More]

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