On Sunday 22 November a building on the Tugelaweg 18A has been re-squatted out of discontent with the current housing policy in Amsterdam. The policy that is being fought is not a recent one. The breaking down of social housing has been going on for years. The privatizing of social housing companies, which have to handle their own finances since the 90s, has created a situation in which affordable housing is considered unprofitable both by the social housing companies and politicians. Social housing companies, whose goal is housing people, are for this reason rejecting social housing instead. Local politics see this happening but do not act. Because of this the situation on the housing market is becoming unsustainable; rents rise and waiting lists become longer and longer. Exactly those people for whom social housing is intended are getting problems because of this. [Read More]
Amsterdam: 10 years Joe’s Garage
For 10 years, Joe’s Garage organizes political action, film and debate evenings, discussions and demonstrations. Everyone is welcome whether it’s for advice in precarious housing, employment and other life issues or for a bowl of soup, a good conversation, nice music or a free raincoat from the Giveaway Shop.
As known, there is a desperate shortage of housing in Amsterdam. That is, we believe, generally not because of a lack of actual buildings but due to shortcomings of housing policy, power struggles in politics and greed in this capitalist capital. None of the 50 shades of the cabinet has ever really been able to solve this urgent problem.
Therefore we squat houses. After all, in hollow promises, one can’t live from pretty words and symbolic politics. [Read More]
London: Against Apolitical Squatting, communique by Squatters and Homeless Autonomy
Coming to Terms
In Camden, an eight-month squat is evicted by pigs and three are arrested under Section 144, the 2012 ban on residential squatting. A man in a SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL SQUAT t-shirt waits for NELSN to forward a text. Two arrive from a council-estate squat further north. Builders begin to secure the building. Against Section 144, against increasing precarity and repression, broken self-identity and fractured organisation, London squatting seems to have begun a coming-to-terms.
Attempts to surround the fragility of the squat scene with nostalgia have come thick and fast: Remember the Squatters’ Union; remember unrestricted residential squatting; remember squatters’ rights. As ever this nostalgia is a thinly disguised dose of forgetfulness: Squatting has always meant struggle; and no mourning for a golden age can deny the permanence of our struggles and the permanent need to politicise them. [Read More]
Amsterdam: The New University squatted an empty office
Today at 13:00 the DNU [De Nieuwe Universiteit / The New University] squatted Oude Turf Markt 147, an empty part of an university building of the UvA [Universiteit van Amsterdam / University of Amsterdam]. The building will be a DNU headquarters, where people can meet to plan actions, do administrative work etc. For a movement, a space to organize is of great importance, this is exactly what DNU had in the Maagdenhuis, but unfortunately that did not last. It seems that the building where they are now located will be empty for longer due to the fact that the faculty of Humanities is cutting its budgets on housing and has moved large groups of administration elsewhere. The part that DNU now owns is barricaded and has its own door to the outside, meaning the rest of the building can still be used by UvA personnel.
[Read More]
Thessaloniki: Call for international support against the auction of VIOME, November 17-24
Dear friends:
As a result of the legal battle waged against the VIOME workers collective, the state-appointed trustee is now organising a series of auctions with the aim of liquidating the plot of land on which the VIOME factory is located. A possible sale of the land would create the legal ground for evicting the workers from the factory.
[Read More]
Thessaloniki: A call for support of the struggle of VIOME
Dear solidarity supporters,
we would like to inform you about the latest developments in the struggle of the workers of VIOME [previously on S!N].
As you know, for four years now we have been fighting for our life and dignity. We, the workers, have chosen to create social alliances. We have rejected the proposals made by various political organizations to have an “exclusive” relationship with our struggle and direct it following narrow partisan criteria. Nevertheless, we have always all accepted invitations to speak and communicate.
[Read More]
London: Hackney Safer Neighbourhood MPS station attacked during Million Mask March
Freedom‘s note: Whilst the Million Mask March was shutting down Central London (as well as being kettled and arrested), it appears an autonomous group of anarchists took matters into their own hands and protested the recent actions of the police in a direct way. The below statement has appeared on the 325 website along with a picture of a smashed window and ‘ACAB’ graffiti. This has been confirmed by our correspondent on the ground whose more recent photo is at the bottom of the article. It is encouraging to see actions taking place out of the usual designated protest zones in London and into everyday communities who feel the brunt of police violence. [Read More]
Trento (Italy): Assillo is back
THE SHIP HAS LIFTED THE ANCHOR AWAY “ASSILLO” IS BACK
On the 24th of october we squatted a building in Trento, Italy.
We need places to live differently and and where we can organize ourselves. The demonstration that those are not only our needs is proved by many and many people who joined the experience of the “Assillo” and “Villa Assillo”, places left empty for years that started to live again for months before the police came and evicted us destroying the roofs – because police fear our will to manage our own lives.
Cologne (Germany): Call-out for a solidarity demonstration in front of the Köln-Ossendorf prison and international solidarity actions
With the arrest of two other Hambach Forest activists, the repression wave against the antibrowncoal movement has reached a new height.
Mr. Blue, who refused to give his identity to the police at his arrest (and still has not given their identity), is imprisoned since the 7th of October. He was arrested while blockading one of the main conveyor belts of the open cast mine Hambach, and through this shutting down the mining activities. Mr. Blue has not been allowed to see the prison doctor since he was imprisoned. [Read More]
London: Scumoween squat party turns into a riot
Last night (31 October) there was rioting in Lambeth, central South London, after cops tried to block hundreds of ravers from getting into the Scumoween halloween free party. Riot cops attacked the party-goers with dogs and baton charges, and the people fought back with whatever weapons came to hand. According to the police, this included fireworks, gas canisters, and a “suspected petrol bomb”. One thing Londoners will still fight for is the “right to party”.
Scumoween famously kicked off back in 2010 when the Met tried to shut down that year’s rave in Holborn. Clashes at free parties in central London are pretty regular these days, as the state tries to maintain our city centre as a sterile corporate zone, all profit no fun. [Read More]
France: ZAD facing eviction threat – call for solidarity
Some context for the international community:
Over the past month the Prime Minister, President, and pro-airport lobby have been increasingly vocal and clear about their desire to evict the ZAD [Notre-Dame-Des-Landes] and begin work on the airport as soon as they can. The time frame of January-March is recurrent in their public declarations. These are threats, not inevitabilities.
The anti-airport movement is strong and determined, but to avoid the hassle of an eviction attempt we need to show our force beforehand, locally and internationally, so the State understands that they’ll only fail again. You’re invited to make actions, spread the word, have big demos, show up at French embassies/consulates and offices/worksites of Vinci (the airport contractor), in a dissuasive phase- and also to plan in different towns and organizing groups what to do from the outside in case an eviction attempt goes through. [Read More]
Athens: Solidarity with the C.O.S.A squat in Portugal, threatened with eviction
The C.O.S.A squat in the city of Setúbal, which had its 15th anniversary this month, has received an eviction threat.*
During the night of October 20th 2015, and as a first response to this bad news, we hung a solidarity banner at the Athens Polytechnic School, on Patission Street in the centre of Athens, reading: Solidarity with the C.O.S.A squat in Setúbal, Portugal, threatened with eviction – Strength, comrades (A) [Read More]
