Greece: We stand against state repression

The state and capitalism continue to target the freedom of the social base and appropriate its labour and resources. In recent years we have experienced some of the most violent attacks on this freedom through the mass impoverishment of the already oppressed and exploited. At the same time, a widespread social resistance and solidarity movement has formed. People have created a variety of self-organized spaces such as housing infrastructures, social medical centers, community kitchens, open parks and public spaces. In spite of setbacks, the movement has created a solid social ground and accumulated considerable knowledge and experience. Through squats, political groups, base unions, squares and neighbourhood assemblies we have formed communities of struggle with strong social bonds. Communities oriented towards society, with a critical eye all the same. At times, the movement has had to use violence as a means of defending and expanding free spaces against state repression, capitalist interests and fascist attacks. It is a movement that grows in diversity and vibrancy, despite the ongoing criminalisation of solidarity and mobility.

In the context of this socio-class conflict, on Monday 26/8, the state, armed with police forces, seized Exarchia and evicted four squats. Two of these squats were migrant homes—Transito and Spirou Trikoupi 17, from where the police abducted 144 migrants, uprooting them from their places of residence for a second time and isolating them in what the state calls detention centers. Evictions were also carried out in an ongoing housing and political squat in Assimaki Fotila street, and the Gare squat, where three arrests were made. [Read More]

Athens: MAT entered inside the steki of anarchist immigrants (Tsamadou 19) and destroyed everything

The night of 1th September, the event of solidarity gathering had taken place in the steki of anarchist immigrants (Tsamadou 19). After the event of solidarity, there was a riot against military check point of the MAT next to the steki, which molotovs burned MAT hardly; after the riot, MAT destroyed the door of steki, entered inside and started to smash everything. At the moment, the door of steki of anarchist immigrants is open and MAT are next the steki.
We have said it, the resistance is still alive and resistance will exist, even if the streets of Exarchia become red from our blood.
The state is try to terrorize the society in order to control it, this is the plan of all the state but we should not fear and we have to throw the fear in the body of the system.
Steki of anarchist immigrants (Tsamadou 19) will be still the center of radical immigrants.
Long live resistance [Read More]

Greece: First they take Exarcheia…

Recent evictions of several squats, some housing refugees and migrants, mark the beginning of a new chapter of repression and dissent in Greece. In the autonomous Athens neighborhood of Exarcheia on the morning of Monday, August 26, hundreds of masked riot cops with tear gas at hand cordoned off an entire block. Overhead, helicopters circled the scene.

No one would be blamed for thinking a civil war, or worse, was about to erupt. But no, the Greek state led by the new conservative government was mobilizing its full repressive armada to evacuate several squats occupied by refugees and migrants. Theorist Akis Gavriilidis weighed in:

This affair is a scandalous waste of public funds, for a result that is not only zero but negative in every respect: moral, legal, practical, economic and whatever you can imagine. To detain dozens of refugees — including children — who have committed no crime, to evict them from places where they have lived a dignified life they have helped to shape themselves, with the only prospect of being imprisoned in a hell where they live in much worse conditions, forced to passivity and inactivity. [Read More]

Athens: Demonstration on 14th of september. Solidarity will win!

[an update on the repressive campaign by the state and call for international mobilizations in solidarity with the squats and the anarchist movement in Greece]

At dawn on August 26th, strong repression forces evicted four squats in the neighborhood of Exarcheia, arrested three squatters and detained 143 refugees and immigrants. While men, women and children refugees were piled in police vans by the armed hooded men of the Special Repression Counter-Terrorist Unit, institutional fascism released its ideological propaganda through the media: a representantive of Greek Police compared the repression forces to a “vaccum” of new technology that will wipe out from Exarcheia “the disturbing dust”, the refugees and immigrants, and afterwards the real “trash”, the anarchists, announcing the continuation of the repressive operation and their declared target.

The recent police invasions are a first manifestation of the repressive campaign, announced by state officials, against the anarchist movement, the squats, the self-organized structures of housing immigrants and refugees, the world of solidarity, social and class resistance in general. A repressive campaign that consists the spearhead of the state and capitalism’s attack on the plebeians of society, aiming to terrorize them and neutralize resistance, in order to proceed uninterruptedly to the onslaught of state and capitalist brutality. The elections of July 7th marked the continuation of the imposition of suffocating living conditions for the workers and the unemployed, the imprisonment of immigrants and refugees in concentration camps and the deaths in the borders, the intensification of the looting of social wealth and nature, the attempt to establish the state of emergency. The government of New Democracy is building on the attempted neutralization of social and class struggles and the tens of repression attacks against squats during the administration of Syriza, promising to crush the people of the struggle – to all those that have stood and are still standing against the plans of the authority. [Read More]

Greece: Exarcheia under police occupation!

Alert! What we have been announcing to you for a month and a half has just begun this morning, just before dawn. Athens’ famous rebel and supportive neighbourhood is completely surrounded by huge police forces: many riot police buses (MAT), anti-terrorist untis (OPKE), police on motorbikes (DIAS), members of the secret police (asfalitès), as well as a helicopter and several drones.

A unique place in Europe for its high concentration of squats and other self-managed spaces, but also for its resistance against repression and its solidarity with precarious and migrants, Exarcheia has been in the sight of the right-wing government since its election on 7 July. The new Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis had made it a personal affair, especially since he had been mocked in early August for failing to achieve his goal of “cleaning Exarcheia in a month” as he had announced with great fanfare.

This morning, 4 squats were evicted: Spirou Trikoupi 17, Transito, Rosa de Foc and Gare. The offensive currently concerns the north-western part of the district, with the notable exception of the Notara 26 squat, which is considered better guarded and very symbolically important for the district as the first historical squat of the “refugee crisis” in downtown Athens. [Read More]

Greece: The hunt for anarchists is on!

The new government is setting up an unprecedented offensive against the libertarian and self-managing movement, which has become embarrassing and reputed over the years.
The newly elected Prime Minister and leader of the right, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, promised to “clean up Exarchia” during the summer and “get rid of Rouvikonas”. Beyond the famous libertarian neighborhood and the elusive anarchist group, the entire revolutionary nebula and the squat network are targeted, using various repressive tools and processes.
Once again, what is happening in Greece gives food for thought to what is also being prepared elsewhere in Europe, as the Greek example has clearly shown the way, in the past, for the new hardening of capitalism on the continent and for an increasingly authoritarian society.
The government will start by reactivating the rogue laws already in place in the 1920s, which were then aimed at both the Greek Communist Party and the anti-authoritarians.
This time, the aim is, first of all, to hinder anarchist propaganda by literally considering its revolutionary political project as an immediate threat, and therefore liable in these terms to prosecution. In short, censorship, not anarchist propaganda as such, but as “threatening speech” whenever it represents a “danger to social order and civil peace”. [Read More]

Berlin: Police raid on Liebig34

This morning 6:30, the police broke into Liebig34 to search evidence and DNA in one room. The reason is an attack with stones against repression forces on Friday night. Soon after many riot police vans and a helicopter arrived, a barricade was burning in Rigaer Street. After some hours police left, no one was arrested. There is a call for resistance tonight and solidarity actions.
Cops destroyed doors and took some stuff. You are welcome to pass by but cops are still around in the area.


Statement from Liebig34:

Raided. Radical. Motivated
Saturday 20.07.2019 Friedrichshainer Nordkiez:

This morning, the cops of the LKA 5.21 unit under the command of Kranich raided Liebig34. Unusual was the saturday, unusual the mix of units from different departments. New were a few civil cop faces, not new: the repression. [Read More]

Madrid: CSOA La Gatonera evicted

First of all, we want to thank all the people who have shown their support and solidarity, especially the collectives, spaces and individuals of the neighborhood. Thanks to the support, we have managed to resist more than 24 hours at the door and hold a demonstration and a parade that hopefully has made it clear that we are still here and will continue to fight.
It has been at least a year since the beginning of threats and coercion by the new owner and his watch dogs (private security companies). There were threats to get an eviction squad after refusing to accept their money (15.000 euros) to leave the building. Seeing that they couldn’t bend us, they started the legal way to evict us. The sentence for the usurpation trial was not favorable to them, and they were still in a situation of appeal. [Read More]

Bologna (Italy): social center XM24 supporters face down national agenda to close self-organized spaces

The autonomous public space XM24 in Bologna is one of the latest organizations to come under pressure from Italian authorities aiming to evict and disperse them. National politicians such as Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, a leader of the far-right Northern League (Lega Nord) and collaborationist municipal governments have cracked down on multi-purpose, autonomous social spaces across Italy.

Bologna has a long history as a “red city” with substantial leftist and anti-authoritarian organizing, with the oldest university in Europe dating to 1088 and continuing political influence by communist and socialist parties. Partisan fighters (partigiani) carried out guerrilla warfare against Mussolini’s fascist forces during World War II in the surrounding region. A popular armed uprising aimed at social revolution finally liberated the city on April 21, 1945, a day now commemorated every year.

From World War II to the present day, antifascist groups maintain a strong presence in Bologna. The cover photo above is from an April 25, 2019 antifascist demonstration that passed by XM24, marking a national day of liberation from fascism. The yellow banner says “Against all fascisms. Against racism, sexism and exploitation.” [Read More]

Catalonia: Police persecution, so normal

The police station of the Mossos d’Esquadra of Banyoles demonstrate their commitment to the repression against the anarchists. At the moment they act under the pseudonym of traffic police but make it clear who they are trying to intimidate by their worst gunmen on duty… as it is not pure chance that they stop and threaten the same person 3 times in a week. This same comrade also suffers persecution by secret-police officers in Barcelona…so clumsy that it´s difficult not to recognize them, as for example last Tuesday, May 28th (15.40h; c/Nació; Clot).

One of the gunmen from Banyoles cops was already known to us as he once pointed his gun at our comrade, 7 years ago, with no reason in a traffic control (exit AP-7 Girona Nord) and then threatened to kill him! Logically he refused to give his badge number then but now threatens to fine the comrade between 600 and 30.000 Euro for not having a Spanish residence and driving a car registered in his country of origin in the EU… (anything is possible with the Gag Law!).
Also recently the cops appeared several times at his home (a house in the countryside) which gives the suspicion that he is being investigated “at ground” to fuck up his life again after evicting his squat one year ago (Kan Bici).

Being consistent with your ideas can be dangerous in this country already that even the “alternative” bars are full of secret-cops and police “out of service” to control what cooks and talks, what consume and who knows whom.

This is how free we can feel until the opposite is proved…
800 reasons to rebel against all domination and authority!

Health & Anarchy
A.C.A.B.
See you at Agro-Crust IX (11th to 14th July 2019)

Trespass [ES version]

Madrid: Statement of the anarchist compañeras arrested on May 13

In the early morning of May 13, an anti-riot unit was breaking into our homes and the anarchist space La Emboscada (The Ambush) – three weeks after its inauguration – together with the 21st group of the Provincial Information Brigade of Madrid, dedicated exclusively to spy and hunt anarchists. We were informed that they were bringing a search and arrest warrant for two of us on terrorism charges. During the search, which lasted approximately 6 hours, comrades from all over Madrid came to show their support.
Meanwhile, the police seemed especially interested in taking clothes with them: coloured and black coats, concrete coloured scarves, scarves, flower scarves, specific footwear; they were also interested in agendas, calendars, some notebooks, some annotations, notes between the pages of books, computers, hard disks, memory cards, usb, mobile phones, photographic and video cameras, CDs and DVDs, construction tools and, especially, hammers; as well as stickers, patches and T-shirts of the brand M.A.L.P.; posters and propaganda in relation to the G20 counter-summit in 2017. [Read More]

Athens: Open Discussion of Bouboulinas squatters with the neighbours

As an open structure and community, aimed at strengthening and developing the co-organization of our daily life and common struggles, we invite all residents of this neighbourhood and beyond to join us in putting our visions into practice. In the end it is everyone’s responsibility to take sides either with the word of community and of free self-organization or with the side of fascism and repression.

We are living in a time of war. Terror, poverty, political and economic violence, those are the consequences. By closing borders, persecuting and massacring at the borders, and mass incarceration and isolation into concentration camps with no prospect of freedom, Europe is waging a war against migrants.

Since February 2019, a mass eviction operation of squats has began, with the migrant squat Arachovis 44 in Exarchia being the first one to be evicted. At 11/4, at 6 in the morning, an army of cops evicts the housing squats Azadi and New Babylon, from where 120 people are detained. Just one week later, another operation takes place against the migrant squat Clandestina, and the anarcho-feminist squat Cyclope.

During the operations, the police violently and forcefully entered people’s homes in the early morning, kicking in doors and entering people’s rooms with weapons. After arresting residents, including crying children trembling in fear, and taking them away to police stations and prisons, the police proceeds to enter their homes once again, humiliating the residents further by throwing their belongings into disarray. [Read More]