Berlin: Rigaer94 raided. Another eviction attempt

By: fawda - July 9th, 2020  Filed under: News

Today at 07:00 in the morning, a hundred riot cops walked over the bicycle rack in the yard of Riga 93 to climb over the fence into our yard one by one. At the same time they occupied the roofs of our block. The cops, along with LKA 5 and 6, then gained access to apartments on the 3rd floor of the front building under the pretext of a search for forgery of documents and others. According to the press, they also searched an apartment on Karl-Marx-Allee.

Contrary to their usual procedure, they refrained from using a helicopter and made no attempt to penetrate the rear building so far. In the meantime, they led the worst traffic lawyer in town, Markus Bernau, around the front building, presumably with the intention of supporting him in legal actions against the apartments occupied there. Torsten Luschnat, who thinks he is our new property manager, also gained access to these apartments. The so-called owner company has already proved several times in court that they can’t really prove anything, not even their legality to take legal action against us. The previous court rulings have dismissed all claims. [Read More]

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Berlin: Attack the city of the rich. Defend the projects

By: fawda - June 12th, 2020  Filed under: Communique, News

The gentrification in Berlin continues incessantly, and with it displacement. Not only people but also spaces are affected: Spaces of the radical movement, open spaces, safer spaces for people affected by discrimination, non-commercial spaces, spaces of subculture, of political networking and spaces where people try to live concrete utopias.

One struggle – one fight
In recent years, spaces such as the Liebig14 house project, the youth centre Drugstore , the community space Friedel54, the wagon places DieselA & Sabot Garden, the O-Platz occupation and the occupied school in Ohlauer Straße have already disappeared.
But it does not stop there. Many other spaces are currently under threat. The youth centre Potse, the house project Liebig34 and the bar collective Syndikat & Meuterei expect an eviction before the end of the year. Other spaces such as the house project Rigaer94, the house project Köpi137, the community house Lause10/11 or the community garden Prachttomate face a similar threat in the near future.

No spaces – no movement
All of these are spaces that live and fight for a different Berlin: a Berlin in which we know our neighbours, in which we create our houses and our neighbourhood together and jointly determine how public space is used. A Berlin where there is room for self-chosen living concepts. A Berlin in which we can try out alternatives to the exploitative and oppressive relations of wage labour, care work, educational system and on the basis of rent and ownership. [Read More]

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Berlin: Let’s take the struggle into our hands again

By: fawda - May 26th, 2020  Filed under: Communique, News

A short call for the reopening of our structures.

Now that the arteries of the capitalist system are again pulsating in the rhythm of production and consumption, we find the re-opening of Kadterschmiede and other common spaces of the projects as important as mentioned in our previous text. [1]
During the “unofficial” lockdown people where pushed to continue going to work or companies found the alternative solution of home office to prevent a breakdown. For almost a month now the industry of education is open again. At the same time the public spaces are under constant attack to prevent political and social interactions.

In times when it’s mostly fascists who reclaim the public spheres and the cops try to control every corner of the city, our spaces cannot be kept closed any longer. [Read More]

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Berlin: On the closure of Kadterschmiede and our handling of open spaces

By: fawda - May 8th, 2020  Filed under: Communique, News

Wednesday, March 25th

Our lawyer told us that he should pass on a telephone threat from the police to us. The content of the threat was that the cops would enter Rigaer94 if Kadterschmiede would not close officially. After a due to timepressure admittedly short discussion, we then announced on twitter and our website that we would not open that day.

Already at 8 p.m. there were about ten team cars of a cop unit in the next vicinity and at the Wedekindwache (cop station in the south of Friedrichshain) the technical unit provided heavy equipment. For a large part of the evening the area of Rigaer Strasse, between Zellestrasse and Dorfplatz, was occupied or sealed off by police. In front of our door the new BP-unit (Brennpunkt- und Präsenzeinheit /“Criminal Hotspot and Presence-Units“ [1]) was stationed again. The usual yellow press and massmedia had been informed and was present on the street from early on.

A few days earlier we had published and postered a text with the title “Self-organization in a state of emergency – Why we still consider open social spaces important”[2]. Though we still politically think it‘s the right thing to do, we took a shot in the dark in two aspects. Neither had we considered the reaction of our enemy in the form of the state, nor had we removed all the uncertainties among ourselves regarding hygiene issues. So, because of our lack of a wider discussion and analysis around the topic of opening our own space we also seemed unprepared for the repression on that Wednesday. We had fallen right into the trap we set ourselves, as we would not have been able to defend any decision we could have made collectively. [Read More]

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Berlin: 2019 A decisive year ?

By: fawda - December 31st, 2018  Filed under: Communique, News

Within the next days the contracts of Liebig34, Potse, Drugstore, Großbeerenstraße 17a and Syndikat are ending. The future of many other projects like Meuterei, Rigaer94, Brauni is not much clearer. Whether they just have more time or the so called owners are playing with concealed cards, we have to develop and adopt a defense for these projects.

A good moment to go into a counteroffensive

The restructuring of the city is thundering on and even a bourgeois middle class can not ignore the consequences anymore. The City is becoming more and more dense and those that still fit in it richer with every wave of gentrification. Houses are getting forcefully vacated, renovated and turned into condos. Renters get forcefully evicted when the so called owners are coming up with more modern schemes of maximizing their profit, renters cannot keep pace with rent raises or are just plain “too annoying”. The last vacant lots are getting covered with new luxury lofts even when they very well were used since their beginning by the people around. Commercial premises are being rented out at such a steep price that businesses inevitably have to become more high priced and exclusive even when the operators might not want that. [Read More]

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Berlin: They‘re coming closer! International call to support Rigaer94

By: fawda - November 26th, 2018  Filed under: Communique, News

On the 15th of November, five hundred cops, including special forces with assault rifles, attacked Rigaer94 to make a house search in the case of a trouble in a shop some month before. The investigation is labeled as „robbery and bodily harm“. A video published by the shop owner shows, that this is an obvious lie in order to create a reason for a martial attack against rebellious structures. The pigs came at 6 o‘clock in the morning and managed to open the doors quickly, meanwhile aiming with their rifles towards anyone showing up at the windows.

In the same moment, four other houses were searched in different areas of Berlin in this issue. Later the Minister of Interior, Andreas Geisel (Socialdemocratic Party), declared that all this was not politically motivated but instead was an offensive against the criminal underworld. But everyone knows that the raids were nothing else than attacks on anti-authoritarian ideas and combative structures in order to claim the monopoly on violence.

In addition to the pigs, the guy who declares himself the lawyer of the official housowner (the british mailbox company Lafone Investments Ltd.) entered the scene in Rigaer Strasse in the company of some construction workers in order to destroy the doors of the house. But he was stopped by the presence of comrades and finally sent away by legal threats by the lawyer of Rigaer94. Nevertheless the presence of the dubious circles that claim the ownership of the house for several years now, is again a meaningful sign. [Read More]

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Berlin: Raid in Rigaer Str. 94

By: fawda - April 12th, 2018  Filed under: Communique, News

Two weeks ago the current reinforcement of the siege of Berlin-Friedrichshain’s Nordkiez culminated in yet another crazy raid in Rigaer Str. 94, at the center of the so called “danger zone”. Two residents were imprisoned.
At approximately 8 o’clock in the morning on 29th March 2018 our dear friend was assaulted and arrested by special forces. 350 pigs were luring around the neighbourhood and waiting for him to be alone, walking his dog, Raf. Only then they dared to approach him. They ripped off his keys and entered Rigaer94 to raid his home. Dozens of pigs supported with ballistic shields and backed up by helicopter entered his flat, seeking to humiliate his teenage daughters, who, too, rank very high on the pigs’ personal lists of enemies of the law and order.
After two long years of round the clock siege, this is the most recent climax of escalation and police terror in our Kiez*. The answer won’t be violent enough.
In the course of the action another resident of Rigaer94 was arrested. They both are kept imprisoned in JVA Moabit. [Read More]

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Berlin: Intersquat Block at the chaos and discussion days, 10.5. -13.5.2018

By: fawda - March 16th, 2018  Filed under: Communique, News

You’re invited to an Intersquat Block at the Chaos and Discussion days in May in Berlin. We want to offer the space for an exchange on our tactics and techniques, discussions and information within the Chaos and Discussion days at Rigaerstrasse.

Structurally we don’t plan on this being an equal replacement for the past Intersquat meetings, unless you want to make it such. We do think this is a good opportunity to connect the general discussions on the sense and future of urban struggles with questions that come up when considering squatting as more than a tool to satisfy basic housing needs. We hope for a discussion on the importance of squatting for other liberatory struggles, houses as political tools, questions on working within and with neighbourhoods and more.

Evictions, Repression, Surveillance, Prisons, the maggots using and supporting oppressive structures are everywhere let’s get together to support each other and smash the ball not just into their court but through its heart. [Read More]

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Berlin: Solidarity with Gare Squat and arrested comrades in Athens

By: fawda - December 2nd, 2017  Filed under: Communique, News

On Sunday, the 26th of November, OPKE units and plain cloth officers entered the Gare-Squat in Exarchia. Although there was resistance from the inside, the eviction was completed in the afternoon with four people being arrested, who were in the house at that time.

The eviction of Gare is directly connected with the attempt of the state to raise the pressure on the resistance before December 6th and to occupy strategic points. The 6th of December is the anniversary of the murder of Alexis Grigoropoulos, who was shot by a cop nine years ago in Exarchia. Since then, every year on that day it comes to riots and fights with the cops, where they try to take over the neighbourhood confronting a massive resistance, terrorizing it with chemicals and detentions.

As active friends and comrades of Rigaer Straße in Berlin, we are in solidarity with the fight for Exarchia, as a self-organized and ungovernable district. Our aspirations, our concerns and straits, but especially our hopes connect us in the fight for a life without authorities. The Gare-Squat, as an active part in this fight, plays an important role for the local structures with an international orientation and their history is our history. Because of this reason, the eviction and the permanent siege of the house, as well as the daily police-terror, is an attack on us. [Read More]

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Berlin: Second night of anti-state violence in Friedrichshain

By: fawda - May 29th, 2017  Filed under: News

20170528_Friedrichshain_BerlinThis Saturday night, May 28, after a film screening, activists started digging a ditch across Liebig Street in Friedrichshain. The goal was to stop police cars and other undesirable traffic on this road, which builds the Dorfplatz at the crossing with Rigaer Street.

The ditch was the pretext for two Riot Police vans to take position on the spot. After a while, they suddenly attacked some neighbours, sitting in front of a house. In the same moment, more two units rushed in the street and tried an assault on houseprojekt Rigaer94. Crazy pigs started beating everybody they could grab. But very fast, neighbours and chaoten began throwing stones against officers.

Three more Riot Police vans arrived with high speed, but they could not handle on the small road. Stones were coming from everywhere, some pigs were neither able to leave their car nor were others to find a safe space on the street. This lead to a panic of this unit, their commanding van was damaged and escaped. Some vans tried to flee without their crew, others tried to carry away the arrested five people. In the end the helicopter arrived again and 65 cops had to leave the scene. [Read More]

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Berlin: Rigaer Street sends aggressive solidarity to GARE & everybody resisting state oppression

By: fawda - May 27th, 2017  Filed under: Communique, News

Rigaerstrasse_soli_banner_Gare_squatWhen some people learned about the recent trouble to Gare Squat in Exarchia (Athens), they decided on Friday evening 26/05, to hang a banner in Rigaer Street, Friedrichshain (Berlin). After some minutes, Riot Police and Undercover Agents arrived at the scene and stole the banner. Meanwhile more people had gathered in nearby streets and ambushed a cruising Police vehicle with a rain of stones.
Soon more police was alerted to Rigaer Street, which is named a Dangerzone in official announcements. But also more people came to protect the area and started throwing stones on cops.
More Anti Riot Units and a helicopter emerged and took a threatening position in front of the squat Rigaer 94. They did not find anyone because rioters left quickly.
Now the mainstream media and the scumbags from political parties will scream their never ending story about the dramatic anarchist violence in this area. But we know, the war has already begun and, infected by the virus of freedom, we are going to build lawless areas in their cities of surveillance.
Let us kick out police and their friends. [Read More]

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Germany: Berliners defy massive siege by police defending Rigaer 94 and autonomous revolution from market gentrification

By: freedom - July 12th, 2016  Filed under: News

rigaer-9418Rigaer 94 occupied center in Berlin symbolizes the struggle for a practical alternative to rampant insane predator capitalism. Police complained that more than 120 officers were injured on Saturday (one had a bruise on his arm) and some 86 demonstrators were violently arrested during popular defence in the German capital which mercenary police complained was ‘the most aggressive and violent resistance in the last five years’.

see also: Berlin: Rigaer 94 Action Day

Berlin state propaganda officials said in a statement Sunday that evil leftist protesters threw bottles, cobble stones and fireworks at the, attacking officers in full protective riot gear and hurt them with fists and kicks.

They declined to say how many brave demonstrators were hurt by the 1000’s of ‘overzealous’ fully armed hysterical police on overtime double-pay. The day’s headlines went planetwide on commercial media ..”Anarchist terrorists hurt over 120 nice innocent Policemen’‘. [Read More]

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