[Squat!net]

On 26th December we visited the Orfanotrofio Squat in Thessaloniki’s Toumba district. A place that was squatted and is now administrated by refugees and the “Anti-authoritarian Space” [1] as well as other active people from Thessaloniki.

About the history

The plan to collectively organize a project like this emerged in September 2015. Connections and contacts between refugees and activists from Thessaloniki were established through the “No border kitchen” in Eidomeni. Together opportunities for meeting and living spaces were sought. Because the border closed three weeks ago (see also part 2 of our report) the creation of a self-organized space got necessary. For many people it became obvious that immediate action was inevitable. Consequently refugees that were rejected at the Macedonian border squatted together with people of the „Anti-authoritarian Space“, the so called ‘Orfanotrofio’. The church owned property was already squatted once in 2013.Three weeks ago, priests together with the cops, threatened to evict the place which did not happen yet. An anarchist comrade estimates the situation right now to be relatively relaxed. According to her, the cops have no reason to evict the place, because there seems to be no apparent political perspective nor will to create spaces for refugees and other socially marginalized groups. Nevertheless, it remains a squatted place and therefore is never absolutely safe. [Read More]

ATTENTION! Change of date

General mobilisation of opponents to the airport project the 9th January, following the announcement of the hearing for the 13/01/2016 to evict historical inhabitants and peasants.

After the ‘adjourned’ trial of December 10th aimed at evicting the historical inhabitants, and within a climate of announcing evictions and resuming work early 2016, let’s show Vinci and the state that we won’t let them do so.

The movement against the airport calls for a massive day of action on Saturday 9th January. [Read More]

Update from approximately 2pm: Royal Mint still occupied but security are preventing people from entering.. Support needed! We should set up tents etc outside asap!

Yesterday [December 28th] squatters occupied a former Royal Mint building in Tower Hill in protest against homelessness, empty buildings and the ongoing criminalisation of squatting.

The building on Royal Mint Court was converted into offices in 1980, when the Royal Mint completed its move to Llantrisant in Wales. At its height, the building symbolised the monetary power of the City of London and, as its occupiers point out, has become to represent the vast inequality it once had a part in producing. [Read More]

In these days of celebrations, we wanted to also extend our wishes to the French government. Death wishes where the Notre-Dame-Des-Landes project is buried once and for all.

Faced with the growing ZAD eviction threats, a small team of artist-apprentices in the night of December 25th to 26th went to decorate the French consulate in Geneva, to thereby also mark down the resistance in Switzerland. [Read More]

From Unicorn Riot

Four squad cars of local police attacked a fundraiser party outside of Casa Naranja Okupa – a nine-year old squat. People were raising funds to start a bike collective. After the early morning incident on Saturday, December 19th, one person is still hospitalized from police gunfire but expected to recover fully.

[Read More]

We will keep going next year!

We squatted rooms in the EWI (faculty of education) together with los of different people to show, that it is possible to realize our political demands. The squatting happened as an act of basic democratically organized civil disobedience.

The rooms here are to small for a Social Center For All and for next year they will probably be used as a communal housing for refugees. Therefore we ended the squatting with a demonstration to the city hall to stress on our demand for an appropriate building!

After the last 2 days, we will try to spend some time in reflection and think about how to pick up on what happened. As a fact: The Occupation of EWI was a big success for us! By squatting we reached the aim to raise attention. There’s no way not to see we are here! We achieved, that public and politics opened for the project, so for now we are in a good position to get closer to our goal: having a Social Center for All! [Read More]

Activists recently squatted several rooms of the unused “Erziehungswissenschaftliche Fakultät” of the University Leipzig (Karl-Heine Straße 22b)!

We demand space for a “Social Center for All”. Around 80 people are participating, there is food and we will continue our discussion. Join us!

update for tonight:
– at 8:30pm we decided to squat the old library of the University, which is not in use anymore. It is located at Karl-Heinse Str. 22b in the building of “Erziehungswissenschaftliche Fakultät”
– there has been between 60 and 100 motivated people all the time.
– we really had disturbing discussions with the university administration. In between we faced absurd threats and police got ready to move in.. in the end negotiations worked out and we will stay till the morning, at least!
– tomorrow we will move on: planing, networking, more discussion about what we want to do.
Come by and participate! Breakfast at 8, see you tomorrow! [Read More]

While the multinational Vinci is an official partner of the “COP21 Solutions: Come live the climate experience” exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris, providing two conferences there (one of which is co-presented by an executive director of Veolia), to explain to the public at which point their approach is “green”, sustainable and eco-responsible; its Airport of Grand Ouest subsidiary has just relaunched eviction procedures against all inhabitants of the ZAD, to be able to start building its “Environmentally High Quality” airport.

Faced with this obsession of concreting our living spaces, a group of paint-artists meanwhile decided in the night of Friday 4th to Saturday 5th December 2015 to cheerfully redecorate the gloomy greyish SOGEA Atlantique building, another of multiple Vinci subsidiaries, in Saint-Herblain [Nantes outskirts]. [Read More]

JOIN US TO STAND UP AGAINST SOCIAL CLEANSING AND THE CRIMINALISATION OF PEACEFUL PROTEST!

Friday, December 18, 1pm
Willesdon Magistrates Court, (448 High Road, London, NW10 2DZ)

On 23 and 24 of September, the Sweets Way estate was evicted by dozens of High Court bailiffs and 7 vans of London Met police. Nearly a hundred occupiers of dozens of homes were turfed out, as was Mostafa, the last original resident of the estate. Supporters peacefully attempted to stop Mostafa’s eviction, many of whom were arrested. Fifteen now face criminal charges for obstructing High Court Enforcement Officers. [Read More]

UPDATE 8.45 In via Agucchi everyone decided to resist to the end against the barbarity of the institutions and the police against the homeless! Tomorrow at 8 am a resisting breakfast will take place, followed by a social lunch at 1 pm, and a metropolitan assembly of the housing struggle at 4 pm! The housing struggle movement will resist one minute more than them!
UPDATE 7.30 With great perseverance we keep resisting on the roof, while the picket of the supporters managed to outflank the blockade of the oppressors in uniform: children, families and occupiers have warm nourishment for dinner on the roof as well! It is a day featuring joy and resistance! Thanks to Eat the Rich and Campi Aperti, thanks to who resists on the roofs, on the vehicles and in the streets, thanks to who builds everyday a beautiful and solidal Bologna! [Read More]

Against the airport and its world, defend the Z.A.D.

The Z.A.D. (Zone À Défendre) in Notre-Dame-des-Landes is a zone of 2000 hectares of fields and forests in the French province of Brittany which is being threatened with destruction by the construction of a new international airport. The redundant project — the region already has a fully-functioning airport — will cost the French taxpayer over 550 million € and lead to the destruction of healthy wetlands and historical farms. Since 2005 the zone has been occupied by dozens of individuals who have fought to defend the autonomous structures they’ve built on the land, which is now inhabited by some additional 200-300 people from a variety of backgrounds. These occupants are experimenting with new ways of living and organizing outside the confines of the law, the capitalist economy, and the state apparatus. As with struggles here in Germany — such as the anti-nuclear struggle in Wendland or the anti-coal mining struggle in the Hambacher Forest– the struggle at the ZAD is important because of the strategy it employs, namely the blocking of the infrastructure of the capitalist economy while simultaneously building an archipelago of communes that refuse the market fundamentalism of our “alternative-less” capitalist world. More than 200 committees and thousands of associations, organizations, and individuals across France and Europe support the struggle. Despite that, the government has recently confirmed its plans to evict the occupiers of the zone as soon as possible. Join the fight, defend the ZAD and other struggles against capitalist infrastructure. All power to the communes! [Read More]