[Squat!net]

The building, Weteringschans 209, is owned by associates of well know speculators Libra B.V. who are currently also trying to evict the ADM.
We wish everyone happy holidays, and solidarity with all squats and squatters worldwide!
Happy holidays!
Greetings from Amsterdam Oost. [Read More]

Apollo House in Dublin was squatted on Thursday 15 December. This building is the former Department of Social Protection offices, which is now being used to house the homeless.

A high court judge yesterday granted an injunction that directs the Home Sweet Home occupiers of Apollo House to vacate the building by noon on January 11th. This means that the occupiers will remain in the building until after Christmas which is some good news but it still means that the State is quite willing to forcibly eject people from safe accommodation back out onto freezing streets or into unsafe, sub standard accommodation.
[Read More]

Amsterdam, 24 december 2016 – Today, we, a Swahili subgroup of the refugee action collective We Are Here, squatted a building on the Amstelstraat 29-31. We had no other option because we were evicted from our previous location at the Rijswijkstraat.
We have asked the municipality many times to help us with sattisfying our basic needs, such as a simple proper shelter for day and night, but nothing has happened so far. Therefore we have to continue to squat buildings.
We are a small group and want to take good care for the building. We had friendly contact with the owners of our buildings before and we hope to come to a good agreement again. We also welcome all our neighbours to visit us. [Read More]

This video was shot on the morning of the Apollo House injunction hearing at the High Court, 21st December. As well as footage from outside the courts on our way there we had earlier visited the sites of other occupied buildings evicted in the last 20 months. We discovered all of them were still vacant and in most cases no visible work at all had been done on them.

Apollo house is a NAMA building occupied to provide emergency accommodation for homeless people. 35-40 people have been accommodated there over the last couple of nights. As expected the judge granted the injunction, it will come into operation on January 11th.

We visit 4 other occupations evicted after the same judge granted injunctions over the previous 20 months. All four of those sites are currently vacant and in 3 cases no apparent work has been done. At the largest, Grangegorman all the habitable structures have now been demolished, it had previously housed 30 people. [Read More]

Today (17/12/2016) in the afternoon we attempted to squat an apartment in the city centre of Amsterdam. Unfortunately, the people from the neighbouring bar became excessively violent leading to the situation escalating. As a result, 9 people were arrested as far we know, and all of them have been released without charges. However if you do have any information about someone still being held, please get in contact with Jebbink Soeteman. [Read More]

The We Are Here group asks for support at Hoogte Kadijk 401 where they have a sit-in / sleep-in in front of a building that is owned by the governement and where a few anti-squatters live. The police stated that they will tolerate the action till 9 pm tonight. Warm drinks, warm food en warm blankets are very welcome!

We are here, we are refugees & we need a solution.
Again our building was evicted on December 13. Our group We Are Here is struggling for over 4 years now and building after building has been evicted, over 20 times in 4 years now. Staying on the street is no solution, nightshelter for a few of us is no solution. We need a real solution and this is permission to stay and building our lives. We are people. We would like to study, we would like to work, we would like to be with the ones we love. Just like you! We are no different. We are refugees and asked for asylum in the Netherlands. We went through a lot in our countries of origin and in our travel to a safe Europe. We told our stories but they are not believed. In order to get asylum we have to come with new proof of our stories, that are hard or even impossible to get or would put our lives even in more danger. We do not get any housing but are also not allowed to work, therefore we are out on the street. We didn’t expect to find ourselves in this situation when we came here as a refugee. That is why we started our action. First in a tent camp, followed by many different squatted buildings. Vluchtkerk, Vluchtkerkluchtflat, Vluchtkantoor, Vluchtgarage, Vluchtgemeente, etc. [Read More]

Neighbourhood letter:

Hello!

Lange Niezel 25 has been squatted as of Sunday December 4th. This means that the squatters are the new official residents. The reasons for this action are:
- the shortage of housing in Amsterdam, particularly social housing
- corrupt housing corporations with waiting lists years long
- a house that’s been out of use for more than 8 years
- a street that hasn’t actually been improved by Project 1012
- the simple reason that a few people want to live there

We can imagine that you’re worried about this, probably because of the bad reputation squatters have. We have absolutely no plan to make this house into a den of thieves.  We’ve chosen a select group of people to live here and we want to fit into the neighborhood as much as possible.  This means that we want to avoid creating nuisances such as trash and noise problems.  More importantly, we’d like to give the building a presentable appearance and finally, to restore its monumental value.

“…Some of the floors above shops are currently standing empty, and are ideal for residential space. Having people living in a neighbourhood makes it a safer and more pleasant area to be in, residents make it more liveable and lively, providing social control and cohesion. [Read More]

We, the living group of Wijde Heisteeg 7 are facing the court case against our evection. This is a call out for everybody to come and show support on the 8th December at 09:30 at Parnassusweg, for the court case of Wijde Heisteeg 7 against the state. The O.M. decided that we should leave the house, for the very important reason of putting antikraak inside. We kind of disagree with this idea of being on the street just because, so we will go to court. If you want we can meet at 08:45 at Wijde Heisteeg 7 Amsterdam, to go together.

Update 25/12/2016 - Eviction Wijde Heeisteg 7 - On Friday 23rd December, less than 16h after the negative verdict for WH7 the cops and construction worker show up at 8 am and evict the house with the inhabitants and their animals inside. Everyone gets arrested and the dog and cat were put also in the police van and transport to Marnixstraat main police station. the animals could go from police station free after one hour. The 4 arrested were kept in custody for squatting until 10.30 at night. 3 of them were released . The last one because unpaid fines was sent to Zuidoost cellencomplex and then to different prisons in center Holland. Today midday that person also get released, so right now everyone is free.
Kraken gaat door. [Read More]

Saturday the 19th of November a demonstration should have taken place at the Kerkplein in The Hague against the repression of anarchists and anti-fascists in The Hague and elsewhere. On the order of Hague mayor Jozias van Aartsen the police made the demo impossible through repression and violence.
The demonstration ended in a kettle and the violent mass arrest of 166 people. In our opinion this is completely unjustified. That’s why we have started to collect complaints about the actions of the police, which we want to submit collectively. If you were arrested, or were mistreated by the police in any other way, fill in the attached form and mail it to arrestantengroep070 [at] riseup [dot] net.

Did you not reveal your identity during your arrest? Then you can still file a complaint. In that case you can skip the personal questions, but fill in a made up name so we can easily distinguish the anonymous complaints. It is also possible to send the complaint via PGP. Send us a message with your PGP key and we will send you ours.

As far as we know no one has received a fine or subpoena until now. If you do receive anything by the police, please let us know asap via arrestantengroep070 [at] riseup [dot] net. [Read More]