Biblioteca Kaos (Chaos Library) facing eviction on August 4th 2016
An invitation to resistance
Greetings comrades and friends.
Projects that are built from a position of confrontation and conflict travel through waters of constant change and innovation.
Since the beginning of Biblioteca Kaos, we knew that when you build an occupied space, you choose this possibility.
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“Mutual aid is arguably as ancient as human culture; an intrinsic part of the small, communal societies universal to humanity’s ancient past. From the dawn of humanity, until far beyond the Invention of agriculture, humans were foragers, exchanging labor and resources for the benefit of groups and individuals alike.” – Wikipedia
Since the establishment of the Bolt Hostel just over a week ago, there have been many people that have arrived at the door to donate furniture, cloths, bed linin, volunteering their time, labour and skills. There has been a communal kitchen area/ TV area created, all by the donations of fridges, microwave, washing machine, cooker, table and chairs, sofa, TV and DVD player by people. [Read More]
12 peaceful protesters have charges dropped in first two trials.
Judge rules tarpaulin not a structure designed or adapted for sleeping.
£1,945,279 spent in policing operation between mid-October and mid-February.
Police criticised for labelling Occupy Movement ‘Domestic Extremists.’
Judicial Review against Mayor’s decision to close Parliament Square Gardens in run-up to election continues.
Charges against 12 Occupy Democracy [1] protesters were dropped yesterday in the first two trials relating to the peaceful pro-democracy group’s occupation of Parliament Square in October 2014. Charges included refusing to comply with a direction to leave and for being in possession of a prohibited article, namely tarpaulin. A further trial relating to charges of aggravated trespass was dropped previously.
From the 17th October 2014 Occupy Democracy held a ten-day occupation outside the Houses of Parliament to highlight the deficit in our democracy. During that time protesters faced increasingly oppressive and violent tactics from the Metropolitan Police aiming to suppress the protest. These tactics included kettling, intimidation, confiscation of property, inflicting pain through use of pressure points and pulling protesters across the ground.[2] [Read More]
Squatters in Istanbul reclaim their ‘right to the city’ and fight for social justice in a city where big business sets the urban development agenda.
Another construction site in Istanbul. Prime Mininster Erdoğan’s special inclination towards so-called “urban renewal projects” has made them pop up all over the city. In both 2010 and 2011 Istanbul was ranked number one among European cities in terms of real estate investment and development, due to its high-speed urban transformation.
But the three-story building taking shape in the increasingly popular district of Kadiköy is not exactly contributing to the kind of urban transformation aspired by the current AKP administration. The colors, the music, and the crowd filling the corner house on this Saturday afternoon in late November are not indicating the inauguration of another shopping mall — on the contrary, they are part of the daily life of Istanbul’s first squat.
While many European cities have a long and proud squatting tradition, evolved primarily out of the problems of rising rent and lack of proper living spaces, in the case of Istanbul the focus seems to be a slightly different one. “Under the domination of money and unearned income all the commonly used places are being taken away,” one of the activists explains in Fatih Pınar’s short documentary about the new squat. “What we are after, in fact,” someone else adds, “is to create again the public spaces that have been taken from us.” [Read More]
Istanbul’s first squat is more than an experiment: it is a counter-hegemonic intervention that challenges the neoliberal dogma of growth at all costs.
In “Occupy the Squares, Squat the Buildings”, a paper written shortly after the eviction of Madrid’s Puerta del Sol, Miguel Martínez and Ángela García show how two movements — the mass popular occupation of Madrid’s central Puerta del Sol, and that of Madrid’s squatted and self-managed social centers — interacted to reinforce one another through shared resources, shared physical spaces, shared logistics and people, and of course shared (but by no means homogeneous) ideas and practices. Horizontality has been the organizational modus operandi of these movements, advancing a staunchly anti-neoliberal, if not outright anti-capitalist critique of Spain’s deteriorating economic and political status quo. This is a status quo primarily characterized by heinous and growing wealth inequality, desperate unemployment, savage austerity, opportunistic privatizations and deeply embedded political corruption.
The opening of Istanbul’s first squatted and self-managed social center, appropriately named Don Kişot (Quixote) shortly after the eviction of Gezi Park, has key parallels with the Spanish experience. The inquisitiveness of one of forty odd police officers during a first visit to Kadiköy’s first squatted and self-managed social center, is revealing: does this have something to do with Gezi Park? The answer, of course, is yes — it has a lot to do with the predominantly anti-authoritarian uprising against the AKP government. The critical yet pragmatic anti-neoliberal or anti-capitalist strand of protest that was so apparent during the Gezi Park occupation has resurfaced in this once empty building, which now houses autonomous community projects of all shapes and kinds. [Read More]
The StayAway squat in Oakland was evicted by a paramilitary camo-clad SWAT team with assault rifles. A long-time rent paying resident was also evicted and left homeless, all for the profit of REO Homes.
At around 10am, four heavily armored black SWAT trucks turned heads as they rolled down Vallecito Place in Highland. Deterred by the barricades that had been built in front of the StayAway over the previous month of eviction defense, the camo-clad SWAT team packing AR-15s went up 28th street and entered an adjoining property. This maneuver appears to have been pre-planned, as the neighbor said that while the Sheriff did not gain her consent to pass through her yard, she was addressed by name upon stepping outside. Entering through the backyard with no warning, StayAway residents confronted by this paramilitary squad were forced at gunpoint to abandon their possessions and leave their home with nothing but the clothes on their bodies. Two comrades were arrested and at the time of this writing their charges are unknown, although we know they were taken to Santa Rita County Jail. [Read More]
We are the squat collective at Stay Away in East Oakland. Tuesday, August 6th makes two full weeks we have been living behind the barricades in order to defend and save our home, a radical space, and one of the lasting vestiges of the Occupy Oakland movement. We are still struggling. We are asking the community of the Bay Area; fellow squatters, fellow radicals, our comrades to come out and help us in the event of an attempted forcible removal by the Sheriff’s Department. Oakland has lost too many of its radical spaces. We are facing the same evil corporation, REO Homes LLC, that evicted the G-Spot–another radical space–and the state and corporate forces are trying to quash our movement to live free.
This house has a two year history that rose directly out of Occupy Oakland, and has gone through many changes with many members, but it has remained, and will remain, an activist house. Members of this collective work or have worked with various groups from Food Not Bombs to Cop Watch as well as founding the Park Gardens and many other activist groups. We are a diverse group or individuals working together collectively to provide a space that is liberated from corporate control of our lives, and to be an example of how we can live free of the chains of capitalism. [Read More]
Last week, residents at the Stay Away received an eviction notice from the Alameda County Sherriff, ordering them to vacate by this Tuesday, July 23rd. The Stay Away is a squatted four-unit apartment building that was started in November of 2011 in the midst of the events surrounding Occupy Oakland. It has housed numerous people since it began and provided free rent for those who needed it. Now it is threatened with destruction at the hands of REO Homes LLC, a predatory entity that has bought hundreds of foreclosed houses in the City of Oakland (especially West Oakland).
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Twelve people injured by the Oakland police department during Occupy Oakland demonstrations have settled a federal civil rights lawsuit with the city of Oakland for a total of $1.17 million. The physical injuries came as a result of OPD’s violent response to Occupy Oakland on October 25 and November 2, 2011. Plaintiffs to receive compensation for injuries include David Morse, a long-time member of the San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center (Indybay).
The settlement in the Campbell vs. City of Oakland case comes on the heals of another $1 million settlement still pending final approval, Spalding vs. City of Oakland. As a result of both cases, OPD has agreed to allow the federal court to enforce OPD’s compliance with its own crowd control policy and to negotiate with the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) before making any changes to the policy. The control policy prohibits police from shooting “less lethal” impact munitions or tossing explosive teargas grenades into crowds, and prohibits mass arrests without warning or opportunity to disperse.
Received by email, features mainstream media..
International Human Rights Organizations and Dear Friends, Comrades, Press Members from all over the world;
This is an urgent call from human rights defenders, activists, NGOs, professional chambers, grassroots, neighbourhood associations and Istanbulites.
Since the 27th of May,Istanbulites from all social and political backgrounds and ages and from all over the city had been continuing a peaceful resistance in Gezi Park, the city’s largest public park, soon to be demolished due to a renewal project. According to the project, decades old trees in the park will be cut down and a big mall in the replica of the once Ottoman Artillery Barracks (Topçu Kışlası)will be erected:
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From : http://takethesquare.net
In the past two years we have completely reinvented the way we try to transform the world into a place where life does not hurt. The old demonstrations, so grey and limited, become obsolete and useless, and have given way to an infinity of possibilities. We rethought the action, the complaint, the relationships, the public, the common, and our imagination has completely overwhelmed the space of what is possible, building already new worlds inside the old structure of this one. We collect here a list of dozens of actions and constructions that we have organized during these two years, sharing all of them that brightness of the new, that smell so special that returns us the confidence in us, and announces what is to come. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do.
A good article from the Voice of America website!?
Protest groups in Spain have helped families that were kicked out of their homes by banks find shelter in repossessed, empty apartment buildings. Police moved in quickly in most cases, but in Seville about 30 families are going on six months of illegal occupation.
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