[Squat!net]

Yesterday, Wednesday, May 24th, Gare’s occupation was the target of organized thugs. At midday, during clashes with MAT forces around Exarchia Square, there was a confrontation of protesters with a shopkeeper who tried to prevent a barricade-defense being set up against cops. This particular shopkeeper is known in the neighborhood of Exarchia as being connected with circles of protection rackets, prostitution and drugs, and with state security. A group from an adjacent movement space rushed to defend him. The incident with a portion of those present athte barricade, with this group has been the reason for GARE to attribute responsibility for these events as a whole.

This particular group has been denounced in open movement processes in the recent past by a multitude of collectives, for authoritarian attempts and military-style enforcement against self-organized efforts. The group supposedly acts on behalf of movement spaces and forms. But these, although they have been called upon to denounce the actions of this group, are silent instead.

Immediately after the incident, this specific group along with another bunch of thugs gathered menacingly outside the GARE squat. This larger collection included members of gangs who sell protection to the area’s shops, and who have been involved in attacks and injuries against radicals in the past. After they all had gone, later some of the original problematic group came to our assembly and said they would turn against our squat if we do not identify and deliver to them within 24 hours the people who confronted them at the events earlier in the square. [Read More]

Last summer the Squat Orfanotrofio in Thessaloniki was evicted and demolished by the Greek government. One commerade faces repressions now for the squating alone, standing at court for all of us, on the trial on the 31.05.2017. We call for solidarity.

The story begins with the squatting of the Orfanotrofeio in December 2015. Thousands of migrants have been declared illegal overnight and are stuck on Greek territory. Within a months they were also displaced from Idomeni, an massive self-made and to a great extent self-managed settlement near the border with the Rep of Macedonia. They were moved to isolated camps throughout the country, under the surveillance of the army and the NGOs.

Those of us who had been visiting Idomeni frequently during the summer of 2015 had seen a wall being built in front of our eyes, people practically living in the mud, being beaten up by the police, giving birth in offhand tents, burning anything they could find from the ruble for some heat in the freezing cold, being moved around from town to town and from camp to camp, in buses that would just show up and then disappear, being constantly stopped for pointless checks in the middle of nowhere on their way to the border. If when they made it to the border, they were often pushed back to Athens, where many of them fell into the hands of smugglers and even organ harvesting mafias. [Read More]

In the morning of Wednesday the 5th of April, the police, led by an OPKE unit, evicted a house in Ano Poli, Thessaloniki. Under the threat of fire-weapons, 13 people were arrested and brought to the police station in Monastiriou. The cops refused to let the arrested use their right to contact a lawyer and get translators for 5 hours. 9 people that came to in solidarity were also brought to the “megaron” and kept 3 hours for identity control. One of them now faces the charge of resistance after the pigs beat him up.

During the day, 2 people had to be transferred to the hospital : one with a severe head-wound after the treatment he received in the police station (the physical and psychological violence of the cops following him even in the walls of the hospital) ; the other because of his health, the pigs refusing for hours to take in consideration his signed appointment with a doctor for this precise day, and for hours refusing giving their prescribed medication to him and another person.

After 32 hours, only 12 people were set free before the trial, one being kept imprisoned for having no paper. He may stay in up to six month for this only, and is also accused, like the others, of both squatting and damaging private property. The asylum process in Greece is still so insufficient that thousands of people are not able to obtain a “legal status” and have therefore no possibilities to get access to accommodation or other forms of support. Living in a squat is often the only option they have. [Read More]

On January 9, 2013, 93 anarchists fight their way in against riot cops in and re-occupied Villa Amalias, after it was evicted on December 20th, 2012. After more than 4 years, the trial against the 93 anarchists will start on March 28th.

On December 2012 as part of a far-right delirium, the State targets Squats and proceeds to evict several of them in Greece. On 20 December 2012 the State evicts one of the historical and oldest squats in Athens (since 1991) named Villa Amalias. In the morning of 9 January 2013, 93 comrades moving collectively and decisively fight their way in against riot policemen that continue to guard the building and succeed to retake the grounds, sending a message of resistance and solidarity, against the onslaught of State and capitalist barbarism. After a few hours special police forces invade the building and arrest the 93 activists.

After more than 4 years, (a usual State and judicial tactic to keep activists’s lives “imprisoned” in perpetual waiting) on March 28, 2017, the 93 are being taken to trial for the reccupation of Villa Amalias, because they dared to disturb the “peace” during the regime’s war and because they remained unruly against the imposed state of emergency and the authoritarian rules, whilst they declare that ‘for the “crime” of fighting for a world of equality, solidarity and freedom they remain consciously “guilty”’.

Solidarity to the 93 activists that retook the grounds of Villa Amalias Squat. [Read More]

Statement by the assembly of Villa Zografou and supporters after the eviction on March 13th in Athens, Greece.

1. Because you have been and you are still paying for it.

50% of the Villa Zografou estate was bought with an illegal loan in 2006 amounting to €19.000.000 (excluding interest). A loan which was legalized in 2013 through a majority vote by a municipal faction consisting of the parties: PASOK, NEW DEMOCRACY and SYRIZA.

2. Because you will continue to pay for it.

The ink is still wet on a €154.430 contract budgeted by the municipal and regional authorities for the renovation of the villas Kotopouli, Bougra and Bonaparte. And let us not forget the recent purchase of the theater Dimitris Potamitis amounting to €550.000, likewise bought under the pretext to create a „cultural center,“ and whose renovation will require a truck load of licenses and money. Apparently, municipal funds for „cultural centers,“ „cultural events“ and top artistic directors with annual salaries amounting to €23.000 exist and are available. But when it comes to providing stable and dignified work conditions for municipal workers, who disenfranchised slave away under so-called „charity work“ austerity programs, funds are missing – despite all the electoral and post-electoral declarations and promises to the contrary. These workers are exceptionally poorly payed and are denied basic worker right such as sick leave, right to strike, etc. In the end, it was only through a prolonged strike that municipal cleaning workers succeeded at re-claiming a few basic labor rights. These are the priorities not only of the municipal officials of Zografou, but of each and every municipal authority. [Read More]

After more than a year of existence, Themistokleous 58 anarchist squat and housing project for people with and without papers in Exarchia, downtown Athens, still needs some very practical solidarity to stay functional. Here goes our current list of needs.

Food supplies: Oil (olive oil/corn oil), rice, pasta, tomato sauce, beans, lentils, chick peas, eggs, potatoes, canned milk, dog-food. [Read More]

HANDS OFF THE 58!

The purpose of this text is to clarify the position of our squat regarding some incidents that took place over the last months in Exarchia, and defend our physical and political integrity by all means necessary.

We refer to the practices of gossiping, slandering and violative behavior against the structure and the actions of the 58, practices that we consider equal as snitching, regardless of whether or not the person using them each time is expecting something in return from the persecuting authorities. The outcome is the same, in the sense that they are singling out specific individuals as a target, they attempt to strip our project of its political characteristics, and prepare the ground for the direct or indirect repression that lurks in the corner.

We also refer to physical assaults that took place the last 2 months, like bullying attempts at our front door, a group ambush against squatters of the 58 at Dervenion street (Exarchia), and even threats and attacks against us with the use of sharp/lethal objects (like a knife and an awl) only a few meters away from the 58. [Read More]

Following the raids on squats and the evictions (previously on s!n), some 60 people have been moved to other squats, after spending hours in police station and rejecting the offer to be transferred to one of the camps nearby Athens. Many experienced life in camps before, and they choose no to go back but rather to rely on alternative accommodation, mostly in squats. City Plaza, as well as other squats, took them in, and volunteers and activists found emergency shelter for everyone else.
[Read More]

The repression of social liberation movement and the destruction of the occupied spaces of refugees and immigrants will not be left unanswered. The Greek Left government chose at the dawn of 13/03/2017 to listen to the commands of the conservative right and the neo-liberal Media of Mass Manipulation and attack against two occupations of the broader social movement in Athens Greece. Police raids are an ideal example of the policy imposed by the domination during our era: when we sleep the State continues working against all of us.
[Read More]

On January 10th 2017, Themistokleous 58 Squat in Exarchia completed one year of activity. During this year our squat took a series of initiatives towards intensifying social war, and participated in numerous actions in support of projects and individuals targeted by repression of all authority.

We have put forward internationalist anarchic solidarity between rebels, believing that it can only be a reciprocal relationship aimed at building up affinity and complicity against the State, Capital and domination, and we continue to do so by factually tearing down phony divisions based on origin, language, gender, sexual orientation and religious or irreligious background of anyone in any way associated with our project.
[Read More]

No Border Kitchen Lesvos needs your support! Callout for people in November and December.

We from No Border Kitchen Lesvos (NBK) are going to need people joining us on the island in October, November and December. After holiday season, with the start of the new semester for many people and with the approaching winter we will need helping hands from end of October.

Additionally we got an unpleasant visit from the cops tuesday. According to them our Social Center will be evicted in 5 days. This would make the 4th eviction this year that we have to face.

At the moment we (still) have two main projects. One is cooking for the people who refuse to stay in Moria camp and prefer to sleep rough in the forest instead. The other one is our social center . Everyday a lot of people visit us there to hang out, talk, eat and meet each other. Of course thats not all…we also stand with the people protesting on a weekly basis in Lesvos against the inhuman conditions in Moria camp and for freedom of movement. [Read More]

From the wing 58 of this open air prison called Athens we send our warmest greetings to the U.$. prison rebels and all those taking action in solidarity with them around the globe. We understand your fight to end prison slavery as a call to end prison society as a whole. We understand mass imprisonment behind tones of concrete and iron as a reflection of the mass society that shackles us all and as an inevitable consequence of the techno-industrial kingdom that determines our lives daily in all possible ways.

We know that contexts might be different from place to place and that some times we get lost into the partiality of our small or big fights against this or that expression of domination and Power. Nevertheless, we believe this is a good opportunity to build up the so much needed intersectionality, to foment it with a borderless perception of the struggle for total self-determination and liberation from hierarchies and authorities that chain us all.

We salute all means of struggle deployed so far against the murderous apparatus of the U.$. prison-industrial complex, and we are happy to know that at least one jailer got what he deserved. While bars of steel and walls of stone may physically contain those in prison, the recent uprisings all over the U.$. have shown that they can never take away the fighting spirit from countless rebels. [Read More]