[Squat!net]

As Melburnians wake to one of the chilliest mornings this year, and a trail of pretty hot-air balloons floats across the city skyline, over 1,000 homeless men, women, children and families have faced a night exposed to the elements or in their cars.
Standing in solidarity, members of the HPUV and homeless community have begun occupying another empty residential property on Bendigo St, Collingwood, overnight. They continue to demand clarification on the ownership and management of six long-term vacant residential properties on this street.
It was revealed to the demonstration late yesterday afternoon that a commercial relationship exists between the state government and Noble Knight Real Estate concerning property numbers 16 and 18 on Bendigo St, Collingwood.
Today the demonstrators once again call on the Andrews government for transparency regarding their relationship with Noble Knight Real Estate as it pertains to any of the empty properties on Bendigo St, and they demand to know why these properties have been left abandoned for over 1 year amidst a homelessness and public housing crisis.
They will continue their campaign until they receive these answers in the name of the 23,000+ homeless Victorians and the 35,000+ Victorians languishing on the public housing waiting list.
The protesters will once again provide a free community breakfast at the site this morning and are encouraging all community members to join them in their demand for clear and accountable government throughout the day.
They will hold a public meeting at the site at 6PM where all those concerned at the government’s underhanded treatment of this issue are urged to attend. [Read More]

After a long-fought day, protesters have successfully occupied an empty domestic property on Bendigo St this morning.
This is despite being informed late yesterday afternoon, and after weathering a 3-hour holding pattern conducted by Victoria Police officers and an anonymous party of three, that their occupation of 18 Bendigo St, Collingwood, constituted an act of unlawful trespass on private property.
Noble Knight Real Estate spokesman, Travis Sanders, acting on behalf of his unnamed ‘client’, informed the demonstrators of this, alongside a Senior Sergeant of Victoria Police.
However, earlier in the day, with the assistance of Yarra City Councillor Stephen Jolly, the demonstrators received confirmation, via a title search, that the six empty residential properties they sought ownership and management clarification on still remain in the ownership of the Victorian government.
Noble Knight Real Estate representative Travis Sanders and the Victoria Police Senior Sergeant declined to provide any clarification to the demonstrators on the relationship between the real estate and the government.
On behalf of the 22,000+ homeless Victorians and the 35,000+ people on the public housing waiting list, the demonstrators will continue to demand such clarification. [Read More]

An update on the court case of the 8 friends arrested for squatting an empty homeless shelter in Calais.

Today, the trial scheduled to take place  at the court in Boulogne-sur-Mer was postponed until Friday, April 1. All 8 had accepted to be tried today,  under the comparution immediate (fast track procedure).

Yesterday, after spending 48 hours in police custody, 3 friends were released until the trial and 5 kept in preventive detention to ensure that they would come to court. However, 3 of those in prison were not able to be transported to appear in person before the court. This was due to an apparent lack of organisation of transport from the prison to the court. [Read More]

Early this morning a coalition comprising members of the Homeless Persons Union Victoria and Melbourne’s homeless community began demonstrating at a number of empty properties on Bendigo St, Collingwood. The properties are among those that were compulsorily acquired by the former Napthine government for the now defunct East West link.
The demonstration seeks clarification on issues surrounding the ownership, management and occupancy of these empty, publicly-owned properties. The lack of transparency has led to confusion within the homeless community.
Six months ago there were media reports that 20 properties were transferred to the Collingwood Football Club’s ‘Magpie Nest’ program, a partnership with The Salvation Army, to house the homeless. A spokesman from Magpie Nest claims that all properties transferred to their management have been filled.
In light of this, the demonstrators call on those responsible to immediately provide clarification on who owns and manages the remaining empty properties. It is unjustifiable that these dwellings remain unoccupied with a Victorian winter approaching.
There are 35,000+ Victorians on the public housing waiting list, growing at 100 per month. This is while the Andrews government neglects, demolishes and privatises public housing. [Read More]

A recently squatted building was publicly opened this morning in Calais, on rue des Prêtres. The building was an abandoned homeless shelter capable of accommodating at least 50 people. People started gathering outside the building around 11 o’clock this morning in support of the people already barricaded inside. A neighbour-collaborator called the cops, even going as far as to offer them a hand when they arrived. By around 2.00 some 12 vans of riot cops had the building surrounded, and those inside had already climbed up on the roof. Around 4.30, they started pushing away the people outside and smashing down the front door of the house with a battering ram. The deputy mayor of Calais who’s name isn’t important enough to publish was holding the battering ram together with the riot cops. Not managing to break down the door, they smashed in a window and opened the front door from the inside. [Read More]

For years, the government and the prefecture of Calais have been destroying living places. For years, people in Calais have been assaulted by police and fascists and have had their belongings destroyed . For years, people are forced to live in fear and insecurity because they are foreigners. [Read More]

A group of determined people have stopped the government’s plans to cut down trees in Budapest’s biggest and most loved public park, Városliget, at least for now. How long will they be able to do so, we’ll see. The government wants to remove the museums found in the Royal Palace and relocate them to a to-be-created museum quarter carved out of the park. It is a very costly mega project that is just as unpopular as the compulsory Sunday closure of shops. Spending all these huge sums of public money, without any transparency, in a time when schools and hospitals are falling apart, is absolutely unnecessary. People understand it’s about two things. First, to distribute the EU funds Hungary receives among loyal friends who get these projects well overpriced, and so our Prime Minister can finally move in the castle where the Hungarian kings lived. A true story of rags to riches: from a mud-brick shack on the edge of a village to the Royal Palace. If people let it happen. [Read More]

This Wednesday 23rd March, four 2012 hunger strikers from Nantes, accompanied by four activists, met with the Calais hunger strikers. Here is their testimony:

“We are here in support, in sympathy, in bringing our experiences, but certainly not to bring advise.

Compared to theirs, our experiences were very light: they have been on hunger strike since March 2nd, isolated in the southern part of the jungle that was destroyed, with a background noise of bulldozers flattening rubble, and the polce that surround them. [Read More]

The weekend of 26th to 27th March, a call-out for decentralised actions against the Socialist Party was launched by the anti-airport movement.

Come to Calais, it’s possible to link these struggles. It’s why we invite you to reach Calais from Friday 25th March. There is no housing infrastructure, come with your own plan for sleeping, duvets, tents, supplies, etc… Be as autonomous as possible. There are some not too expensive restaurants in the jungle, put in place by refugees. Camp water isn’t drinkable. Bring what you need. It’s possible to reach the town centre by bus. If needed, an on-site telephone number : 07.51.02.17.33 and the legal number 07.51.55.72.54. [Read More]

From Friday 15th to Sunday 24th April 2016 @ the self-managed social center in Toulouse (C.S.A)

For almost 5 years now, we, members of the CREA (Campagne de Réquisition, d’Entraide et d’Autogestion ; meaning : Requisition, Mutual Aid and Self-managing campaign) [occupy] private and public empties for housing, organising and living regarding to our own needs and with our own ressources. We refuse to watch a city change according to rich people desires and see financial interests wage war to poor people. Since the very beginning of our campaign, We oppose the speculative logic of misery organised by the authorities in charge and by capitalism because We aim for living in dignity ; and, as could be expected, We suffer a repression which only increases every year. [Read More]

I will start this post with a piece of news that at first glance may not seem especially noteworthy. Viktor Orbán’s grandiose plans for rebuilding large portions of Budapest include the creation of a “museum quarters,” part of which would be built in Városliget, the Hungarian capital’s more modest Central Park. The city, especially the Pest side, is very short on green areas, and from the very beginning many people objected to the project on ecological grounds. Others objected to Viktor Orbán’s burning desire to move his office into the historic castle district, within whose medieval walls Hungarian kings once resided. Today parts of the royal castle, built in the nineteenth century, are used to house the National Library and the National Gallery. Among Viktor Orbán’s extravagant plans is the reconstruction of the monstrously huge royal castle, which requires moving both the National Gallery and the National Library elsewhere. The trouble is that there are no suitable buildings where these two important institutions could be relocated. Hence, the idea of a “museum quarters” and perhaps even a new building for the National Library somewhere near the National Museum in downtown Pest. All this would, of course, cost an enormous amount of money and would, in the process, destroy the “city park.” [Read More]

Late in the evening of March 13th 2016, the Vancouver Apartman building which is squatted for a little over a decade came under attempted arson attack, when a Molotov cocktail landed in front of a door on Mavromataion Street.

At a time when the anarchist squat in Vancouver Apartman building is threatened with eviction, because of reconstruction plans by the Athens University of Economics and – above all – Business, it comes as no surprise that nationalist scum have rushed to assist the institutional repression. [Read More]