Emergency housing in Brussels : squat opened and evicted
Thousands of persons are expected in Brussels for mass protests against the european summit that will take place from December 14th to 15th. Authorities have voluntarily made NO housing available, which makes the housing situation very tricky.
As a result of this, an empty basement was opened in the night of December 12th by a group of people, mostly french. It was evicted early in the morning the next day. Some 43 persons were arrested, while 8 could escape through the roof. The 30 french people that were arrested were deported in the afternoon, but weren't charged.
As the situation remains very difficult, there might be some new squat attempts.
Here's a report of the eviction, anonymously posted on http://www.indymedia.beby someone who could escape.
The squat was raided at about 7.30am. I was with a group who escaped over one of the back walls. The police came outside. I saw 3 Police cars but there were also a number of plain clothes police in plain cars. It was impossible to tell how many. From an upstairs window we could see them give chase to anyone who tried to leave by the front.
At the back wall people were trying to climb over the wall to try and find a different way out. Some of us found a ladder and got up on the roof of another building. As we walked on the roof it gave way beneath me and i fell into the building. Luckily I landed first on the bonnet of a car which broke my fall and then I bounced off that and landed on the ground. I hurt my right shoulder pretty badly and my leg and arm and ribs.
2 guys followed me into what is a garage and then the alarms went off. Which was heard in the squat and caused more people to try escape. We tried to leave from the garage door but that didn't work so we took the stairs to the roof and climbed into the garden, then into the next building which we managed to get out of onto the street. The police were to the left of us but they didn't pay any
attention so we managed to get away.
We wandered around the city for about an hour and then went to the station squat were we heard that between 30 to 40 people had been arrested when the police came in.