[Squat!net]

The Autonomous Social Centre Klinika, which occupies the building of a former clinic in Prague, has attracted a large number of supporters and was awarded a prestigious prize. Yet its future remains uncertain.

Since 1987, the Charter 77 Foundation has annually awarded the František Kriegl Prize in the Czech Republic. The award is a reminder of the brave attitude of the Czechoslovak politician František Kriegl, who refused, as the only member of the political elite at the time, to sign the “Moscow Protocol” after the country was invaded by the armies of the Warsaw Pact in 1968 and so legitimate the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Soviet tanks. The current mission of the prize is to highlight exemplary courage expressed by individuals or civic institutions in the quest for upholding human and civil rights, and political tolerance. Its results are announced each year on 10 April, the day of František Kriegl’s birth. This year, the prize was awarded to the collective of the Autonomous Social Centre Klinika, located in Prague’s Žižkov district. Its activists now stand alongside figures such as the Czech dissident Jaroslav Šabata, leading Roma scholar Milena Hübschmannová, or anarchist Jakub Polák, who all held the award previously. It is undoubtedly one of the most telling proofs of the social necessity and importance of the Autonomous Social Centre. “Klinika lives, the struggle continues”, runs the slogan of the movement that arose around Klinika in the past year. But despite the award and the strong imprint that Klinika has left, the centre’s future, symbolically and physically connected with the building of a former healthcare facility in Prague’s Žižkov, is still not certain. [Read More]

Call for international solidarity

The Klinika Autonomous Social Centre celebrated its first anniversary,running a space on legal loan in Žižkov, Prague. Activists occupied the house, which laid derelict and full of rubbish for five years, at the end of November 2014, and after police interventions and negotiations on the contract with the Bureau for Representation of the State in Issues of Property, the Centre, called Klinika, began its varied program in March 2015.

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Neonazis attacked Klinika. One person was hurt, others were in danger. Activists assume there’s a link between islamophobic demonstrations that were held today and visited by thousands of people. Klinika collective is not afraid and is going to continue its activities. Klinika also calls on people attending such demonstrations to realize whom they are supporting by doing that.

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Czech republic is a country of „political stability“. In despite of general disillusionment in capitalism no social movements haven’t emerged yet. Whereas in other countries social protests and demonstrations underway at least, in the Czech republic demonstrations against neoliberal austerity can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Moreover even the radical left, anarchist and anti-authoritarian activities were in decline after anti-IMF and anti-NATO summit protests at the beginning of 2000′s and squatting practically disappeared.

The situation began to change slowly after the eviction the last squat in Prague in 2009. In the next years the squatting has become important repertoire of action of the small radical and autonomous milieu in Prague. In despite of police repression and quick evictions of the squats, activists used the squatting as a tool in struggle against real estate speculations, and as a symbolic challenge the dogma of private property as one of the cornerstone of capitalist ideology in the Czech republic. After 2012 only one squat (Cibulka) remained, but squatters brought attention to the issues of speculations. Besides this symbolic struggle there was long-term effort in autonomous milieu to open squatted social center as autonomous space for radical and anti-capitalists politics. [Read More]

The Cibulka squat has been evicted today, four people are still in the tower, twelve have been already arrested according media report.
More info to be posted as soon as possible.

Communique 11/05/2015 – Cibulka evicited…

Hello comrades friends and all the others

Our beloved squat Cibulka was evicted in wednesday 6th of may The police sent “tens of tens” (as described by the media) policemen in heavy armor with a water cannon against ten residents and less than twenty visitors of the run-down building. From those they then picked out residents according to an in advance prepared list and took them in for questioning. One of us got a suspended sentence in speeded-up proceedings, seven others are prosecuted for so called unauthorized use of property. We consider the intervention not only illegitimate, but also illegal according to what is here called legal code of the state. In spite of losing a place to live, in spite of the beating, threats, bullying and contempt from the police, state offices and even “decent” society, we remain free – our fight goes on! [Read More]

Prague is just like any other big European city in desperate need of a noncommercial community centre, of a space for cultural events (such as concerts, exhibitions, etc.), educational lectures and workshops, community gardening, cooking, library, and, above all, meeting people from the neighbourhood (or anyone interested) and also a place to support marginalized groups of people (especially people without homes) who are living in stop-gap conditions on the fringes of society.

The building of former lung clinic (that’s why the name “Klinika“) in Žižkov district, which was abandoned, unused and left to decay, was taken over by a group of squatters and activists on 29th of November 2014 in order to create “Autonomous cultural and social centre Klinika“. All the trash including used needles was cleaned out and the first neighbourhood event was organized. But after just 10 days, on 9th of December, the building was violently vacated by police forces. On the 13th of December big demonstration took place (about 1000 people) but after its end police corpses forced everyone to leave the place, several people were injured and had to be taken to the hospital. Since then, we were stuck in endless cycle of meetings with city and state offices and basically forced to wait. [Read More]

Czech squatting weekend in Amsterdam, February 20th – 22nd 2015. Klinika on tour!
Friday 20.02.2015 Klinika soli night with food, presentation, discussion & more @ Squatted autonomous space Joe’s Garage http://www.joesgarage.nl/

19:00 Soli dinner (some Czech traditional dish in the vegan style)
20:00 Presentation
21:00 Discussion, maybe some movie about current squatting theme in Czech Republic and maybe some acoustic concert

Some members of Czech squatting movement are coming to Amsterdam to present and discuss about the actual breakthrough in the squatting movement in Czech Republic. On Saturday, November 29th, an abandoned building of a former clinic in Prague district of Žižkov was occupied by a group of activists. Cleaning works, reconstruction and program started immediately. Despite widespread support, including neighbors, politicians, artists, journalists etc., the owner of the house – Office for Government Representation in Property Affairs – withdrawed from negotiations. Regarding to some sources, the “anti-extremist” department of Czech police played an important role in this decision.

Autonomní sociální centrum Klinika (Autonomous Social Centre Klinika /Clinic http://451.cz/klinika/ ) was evicted December 9th after ten days of struggle and hundreds of people participating. Spontaneous demonstrations immediately took place in front and inside of Žižkov city hall and in office of the owner. After a few days, one thousand people demonstrated in support of the autonomous center. The building is now being guarded, but the struggle isn’t over yet. Žižkov councilors agreed that they will start negotiations with the state. The public support of squatting is now the highest in Czech history. The ministers of interior, finance and social affairs publicly admitted the possibility of decriminalization of squatting. We, as a group supporting a project of social centre, are calling for international support! A pressure on Czech state can help us to create a historical success. Every city needs it’s clinic!

Saturday 21.02.2015, Soli concert and party @ DisKontrol, Papaverweg 7, Amsterdam Noord [Read More]

As we already informed you in previous article, the squatted autonomous centre Klinika (situated in former clinic owned by state, now in decay and without any real plans how to revive it) in Prague was evicted on 9th of December, despite having support from neighbourhood, people from wider cultural scene and even from council of local municipality, Žižkov. The struggle continues and Klinika needs any kind of support more than before.

While there still were (and still are) some kind of negotiations going on between delegates from Klinika and various state and city organizations, a solidarity happening took place in Prague on Saturday 13th of December. Up to thousand people joined and walked through the neighbourhood in a possitive mood. After the march was finished in front of Klinika, a group of attendees occupied the house for a few minutes, but after they were persuaded by so-called “Anti-conflict team” of the police, they left without any force being used on them. However, the police used this issue as an excuse to displace people from public spaces around the house in quite a brutal way – the organizer of demo was beaten down for no obvious reason, people were pushed to fall down the hill, two ended up in hospital… [Read More]

If you have ever visited Prague, you may have spent time in the district of Žižkov. It is well known for being one of the foremost centers for alternative culture in the country. So you would think that a neighborhood with such an important role would be a place thriving with unrestricted art movements and an anything-goes cultural norm. Unfortunately, that is not the current situation in modern day Žižkov. This can be seen no better than in the current situation of the Autonomous Social Centre KLIniKA.

Klinika was established in the beginning of December when a group of activists occupied an old clinical center and decided to change it into something what we still miss in Praha. With a very nicely formulated project they wanted to build an independent social – cultural center based on autonomous principals. The autonomous centre could have the power to create from a devestated clinic a successful, publically beneficial project. Unfortunately, as usual, state authorities with fear and prejudices, dealt with it through no dialogue but with repression. After 10 days Klinika was evicted by the riot police. Moreover, the facts which now we learn lead to the conclusion, that the police have got much more influence than we first expected. [Read More]

On Friday, the 7th February in the early evening, police evicted the “silent squat” in Neklanova street in Prague 2, used exclusively for housing. The house owned by an Italian company who have cleared the house besides one tenant who welcomed the ‘squatters’. During the intervention, which was without unjustified violence by the security forces, sixteen people were arrested, including several onlookers who came to support the squatters.

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The Prague’s renowned squat Villa Milada, which was evicted three years ago after being one of the most important places for Czech autonomous underground scene, had been occupied by approximately 30 people on Saturday June 30th to commemorate the bleak anniversary by an improvised hardcore punk gig. Even though the authorities were informed that this is a one-off event which is not an attempt to reoccupy the squat for good but a symbolic pointing out of a passive approach of a Czech state to take care of unused buildings and of the oppression against alternative culture, the police reacted with a massive police operation including an aggressive attack against the non-violent concert-goers, which resulted in many bloody injuries and in a temporary arrest of tens of people. [Read More]

Solidarity from Berlin to the Nederlands

While the actiondays in the Nederland we attacked in the night to Saturday (30th to 31th October 2009) the Nederland Embassy with colours and stones.

We show solidarity with all the squatters and activists who fight offensive against the new squatter laws in the Nederland. The strike of the Nederland State against selforganized autonomous spaces is an attack on us all and could not be tolerated. Fight for selforganized autonomous spaces – squat the world! Smash capitalism! We stay all!

Barcelona squatters demonstrate at dutch consulate

Barcelona squatters demonstrate at dutch consulate against new dutch anti-squat law:

Monday 26 oktober 2009

Barcelona squatters demonstrate at dutch consulate against new dutch anti- squat law:

today,a group of 60 squatters from Barcelona held a one hour demonstration in front of the dutch consulate to protest the new anti-squatting law

With slogans and banners in Spanish, English and dutch, short speeches and making noise, the barcelona squatters expressed their solidarity with dutch squatters and their stuggle for a dignified existence. [Read More]