Warsaw: Update on arrests, Radykalne Ogrody Działkowe raided

[Correction Radykalne Ogrody Działkowe was raided only, no eviction attempt]

On the night between Sunday the 22nd & Monday the 23rd of May three comrades were detained near the car park of South Warsaw police station. Cops claim to have found an explosive device under a police car. All three comrades were taken into custody at the station and one comrade was severely beaten. The comrades refused to cooperate and denied all accusations of ‘terrorism’ and attempting to bomb the police station. The comrades received support from the anarchist community and 3 squats from Warsaw (Przychodnia, Syrena, Radykalne Ogrody Działkowe) and were provided with legal representation.

The same day police raided Radykalne Ogrody Działkowe squat where one of the arrested comrades lived and search for evidence. According to the “Reclaim The Fields” website: “Cops arrived between 4 and 5AM. They invaded the squat area by cutting fences and demolishing the gate with a forklift. Six undercover police invaded people’s rooms. One friend woke up and found himself surrounded by cops questioning him about his identity. They then proceeded to search the entire squat.”
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Warsaw: Open letter in connection with the arrest of three anarchists

On the night of May 23rd, the police in Warsaw arrested three anarchists on charges of an alleged arson attempt of a police vehicle. The three were transferred to a remand prison where they are to be held in custody for three months, awaiting trial. They face up to 8 years in prison. Media frenzy broke out over the arrest in the past few days, with high-ranking politicians and experts on terrorism discussing the matter on TV. Photos and video reruns of the arrested walking with chains around their feet and hands are broadcast on public transportation. The text below is a translation of the statement that was sent out by various groups from the anarchist and wider social justice community in Poland, in response to these arrests.

Open letter in connection with the arrest of three anarchists in Warsaw

The mass media in Poland are releasing increasingly more absurd, one-sided reports about the arrest of three anarchists on Monday, May 23rd. We interpret this as an attempt to intimidate and criminalize social justice movements in Poland.
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Poznan: Three months in jail for eviction blockade

On the 27th of April Lukasz Bukowski, a participant of Anarchist Federation Poznan, Poland, went to prison for three months. He had been charged and sentenced with the breach of bodily integrity of a police officer which had happened during the eviction blockade of a disabled woman and her husband, Katrzyna and Ryszard Jencz, from a tenement house in Poznan, Poland. Lukasz refused to pay the fine, which then was changed to community work and then to a prison term. He appeared at a prison in Poznan where he will spend the next three months.
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Poznan: Conference “The cities for people – not for profit”

6th – 9th November 2015, Poznań, Poland

Greater Poland Tenants’ Association together with European Action Coalition for the Right to Housing and to the are inviting you to the conference of tenants’ rights groups. The congress will take place in Poznań between 6th and 9th November 2015.

It has been many years since we can observe the expansion of precarity of housing condition all over the world. The neoliberal policies are forcing increasingly larger clusters of a society to outlay more and more: privatisation of common resources, welfare cuts, limiting citizens’ rights, mass evictions, gentrification and proliferation of banks on the housing market. These techniques are of international scope – the results, with varying dynamics and at different stages are discernible everywhere in the world. It is absolutely essential to create a network of solidarity in struggle for decent housing conditions. We are obliged to expose the radius of human rights violations, including the right to decent living, that shall not be aligned neither with one’s economic status nor their origin. We have to reveal the genuine character of EU and UN-Habitat policy (UN-Habitat Conference, Quito, Ecuador, October 2016) aiming to blow “the right to the city” and “the right to housing”. [Read More]

Poznań (Poland): Attack on Squot Od:Zysk and anarchist bookshop

Yesterday we were once again witnesses to how being “antisystem” works in the case of the far right. Nationalists, who have been infiltrating community of football fans for years, are trying to use the popularity of football. After yesterday’s match, the “opponents” of power didn’t take the opportunity to attack the building that is represented by Platforma Obywatelska (the ruling party) – the Voivodship Office
Their “antisystem” approach is represented by smashing windows of an anarchist bookshop/cafe “Zemsta”. 40 people broke windows and destroyed the gate of the building. However, banks, including those responsible for harassment of tenants and brutal evictions, remained untouched.
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Warsaw/World: Antifrontex days 19-22 may, 2015

On May, 21st, 2015 the crème de la crème of European racism will gather in Warsaw, Poland, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the creation of one of the most influential meta-organisations that guards assets of the Fortress Europe. The organization, not widely known, until recently standing in the shadows, is a hybrid of border police and intelligence service, as well as aggressive promoter of anti-migrant policy. Frontex (from french Frontieres exterieurs), being discussed here, is the executive body of EU (anti)migration policy – enjoys autonomy in decision-making (for EU foreign policy), and has a yearly growing budget, which is not accounted. Budget, used to finance futuristic projects, straight from distopia, like an automatic system of land drones, known as TALOS project, carried out in cooperation that included Warsaw University of Technology, Israeli Aerospace Industries and a lot of other military corporations.The trust also allows them to conduct their own foreign policy on migration – dealing with the neighboring dictatorships (Belarus, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria), sponsoring and organizing repression against refugees in a secure buffer zone, which blurs responsibility. As a result, the border of Europe moves farther away from the ‘old continent’, helping to hide the effects of this policy in the eyes of Europeans. Sponsored camps in the countries of the global south and ruthless anti-human migration policy of the EU countries result in real victims – tens of thousands of people drown, starve, are left at sea or desert, or are directly shot – every year more than at the Berlin wall in the entire time of its existence.

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Katowice (Poland): European Economical Congress means full hotels and empty houses

Last night in early morning hours [April 20th, 2015], police raided a house squatted by activists in Mariacka street, Katowice. The police used rubber bullets, smoke, and stunning granades. 21 people were beaten up and arrested (at least 3 people were taken to hospital). The poeple immediately started a hunger strike against their detention. According to the police, the people are accused of breaching domestic peace (in an empty building!). Solidarity picket took place at 13:00 in front of the cop station at Lompy 19, Katowice. In Poznan at 14:00 there was a solidarity picket in front of the Regional Police station, Kochanowskiego 2a. [Read More]

Warsaw: Police car set on fire in memory of Remi, killed by cops at Testet, by Queer Meinhof / FAI

From 325:

Last night (25/26 November), the first spark of fire that burns today in France, Greece and USA, illuminated the space under a car of the city-police, which was parked outside the police station in Mazowiecka street in Warsaw.
We’d chosen the target not by accident. [Read More]

Warsaw (Poland): Syrena means struggle!

On September 17th 2014 our house in Wilcza Street 30 in Warsaw will be put on auction. On September 15th the court bailiff planned a viewing of the premises for potential buyers. Subject to auction are half the shares of the reprivatised estate, which the bailiff obtained from its former indebted owners, Krzysztof and Joanna Podsiadło. These persons simply did not pay after formally purchasing the house, however in the period of their ownership years-longed tennants were evicted and the condition of the house deteriorated. It is a case typical of the history of reprivatisation – the procedure of transferring of community-owned houses to private cleaners. Though investors promise ‚revitalisation’, their part is most often limited to speculation, eviction of the inhabitants, and selling off to further investors. [Read More]

Poznan: Od:zysk under threat – police prepare for illegal eviction

In the last few days we have seen increased police activity around Od:zysk squat in Poznan, Poland. Plain-clothed officers have been watching the people entering and leaving the building, taking pictures, ID-ing people and harassing our guests and inhabitants of the squat. We have also heard about police preparing to enter the building by force and performing an illegal eviction. What is important to say is that it’s all happening while we’re still negotiating with the owner of the building. Przemyslaw Wozny, the president of Paderewski Ltd. company, who bought the building with its tenants in March 2014, has been talking about a peaceful solution to this conflict, and on the other hand, he’s been preparing to enter the building with the bailiff and the police. Therefore, he breaks off the negotiations and aims at confrontation. We would like to state that if anyone tries to enter the building without our permission, they will not be let in. [Read More]

Warsaw (Poland): Przychodnia attacked – statement

Squat_Przychodnia_under_attack_Warsaw_Poland

Around 3:45 pm the participants of the independence march attacked Przychodnia social centre. It is owing only to our own determination and calmness that we managed to resist the nationalist aggression. A few people were injured but nobody’s life is in danger.

Neo-fascists were prepared to comment on the matter in the media and immediately informed that it was the people from the squat who attacked their march from the roof throwing stones in their direction. It is obvious that it was impossible because the end of Skorupki street, where the building is located, is around 200 meters from Marszałkowska street, along which nationalists were marching. [Read More]

Cracow: We ask for solidarity actions with social centre “Gromada”

Squat “Gromada” was created in the centre of Cracow, near the main railway station, in the district, which is particularly attractive for developers.  For many years the building was empty, so it’s condition is getting worse and worse. On the 12th of July group of activists in Cracow announced the official opening of the socio-cultural centre in this building. The event was accompanied with the Cracow Rhythms of Resistance. Activists organized a picnic for neighbours.

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