Wassenaar: The Danger of Occupied Ivicke

By: sisulscz - August 13th, 2020  Filed under: Communique

Why does the municipality of Wassenaar consider our residency at Ivicke to be a “danger”? And what exactly are we endangering? Here, I will give these questions some space, that necessarily lead us back in time.

In January 2019, Ivicke’s owner requested the municipality to enforce the bestemmingsplan (zoning plan), which was rejected a few months later in June. The municipality justified this decision by pointing out that our eviction would constitute a danger to public order given the owner’s lack of a plan for the building – that is, more vacancy could lead to a second act of squatting.

[Sidenote: The notorious bestemmingsplan is the bureaucratic destiny of Ivicke which was changed to an office function in the 1980s from its original purpose as residency. Thereafter, antisquat companies, hired by the current owner, made use of some rooms, which moves in a legal grey area but is tolerated due to its corporate nature and temporary status. While our residency is quite certainly of a temporary nature as well, the bestemmingsplan has been used as a strategy to evict the “danger” we pose by both the owner and the municipality.]

Back in time: The owner’s lawyer appealed on 29th of July, which was received on the 31st of July by the municipality – interesting timing, as the mayor got to know about the upcoming No Border Camp (NBC: 01.08.-04.08.) on the 30th of July. The NBC is an international gathering with workshops and actions, that inform about and act against the inhumane migratory policies of EU-states, and that aim to connect struggles in other parts of the world. Here, we pause in time because those days were packed with legal procedures and political struggles.

After the owner’s lawyer was informed about our plans with the terrain, she took the municipality to court in order to force them to prohibit the upcoming camp. When the judge didn’t grant her will, she went in appeal hoping that another judge would forbid the – at that point – ongoing camp. Luckily, this didn’t happen and the NBC proceeded. It is however interesting to investigate the lawyer’s justification for this legal upheaval. Her main argument emphasised the potential harm that the activities during the camp could cause to the monument. Her concern is quite ridiculous, as she is representing the person – Ronnie van de Putte – that has remorselessly observed the gradual degradation of the monument and not taken any steps to prevent its eventual destruction.
[Read More]

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UK: Tales from the Trees & Tracks

By: sisulscz - August 13th, 2020  Filed under: Communique

Hello, I am @mushrooni and I travelled down from West Yorkshire on the train to Crackley Protection Camp. Ironically I took the planned HS2 route from the north to Birmingham…
So I brought a tent and initially planned to stay for a couple days but it has nearly been a month now!

I joined this campaign to engage with others and take action against HS2. Obviously I’m here to protect and stand up for the trees, birds, bats and wildlife that are being ripped apart and killed, though it’s much bigger than this – it’s about the whole capitalistic project and the system that HS2 is part of and represents. Protectors have been mistreated, harmed and put in really serious situations – the National Eviction Team, HS2 security and police departments are getting away with their dirty work.
I have never felt so much kindness, generosity and openness from strangers as I have done being involved in these communities. I’ve realised how important it is to be around like minded people, working towards the same goal and how necessary it is to be able to stand up to what is wrong.
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Czech Republic: What Bublina is and what it is not

By: fawda - August 13th, 2020  Filed under: News

Bublina is a squat, located on the planet Earth, somewhere on the road between the cities of Aš and Břeclav. These buildings with a yard have been unused by the owner and inhabited by many different people with many various motivations over the years. Some of them left, others have been expelled by the police. Since August 2019, the squat has been occupied by first member of a newly emerging group of residents and supporters, and has been re-named “Bublina” (The Bubble).

This first resident has been dealing with housing crisis and lack of space to thrive for quite some time. After a few months, two more people joined who has been on streets since their employer deprived them of financial resources. They moved right before outbreak of covid-19 pandemic, which allowed them to self- isolate in quarantine here and survive without health risks. Both of them are elderly, so their health could have been compromised otherwise. These elderly men and middle-aged anarchist soon became accustomed to living together. It is not ideology nor generational struggle which made them cooperate, but their willingness to solve their material conditions and fulfill their other needs by squatting. Their situation is quite different to those, often coming from middle-class, who squat for idealistic reasons and squatting is just another adventure for them. Residents of Bublina simple do not have resources to buy or rent flats and squatting is the only way out. A solution beyond the legal and mainstream norms, nevertheless legitimate and effective. If it wasn’t for activities of these residents, there would only be wreck of a building on the spot now, with owner who would not take care of it. Squatters take good care of this house and yard. It is their home now, after all. [Read More]

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UK: HS2 High Speed High Tension

By: sisulscz - August 11th, 2020  Filed under: Communique, essay

Over the last fortnight I have gone down a High Speed 2 research wormhole, sparked by the thought that I hadn’t heard much about what was going on lately with this bloated project. I started to google around and to read the media outside my usual reference points, which led to a fair few discoveries, some good some bad. This is a time of high tension, a time when the white elephant should be retired before it’s too late. With my head full of statistics and controversies, I chatted to friends and families in the park and at barbecues and received a fascinating range of opinions. There are protest camps going on and I visited some of them. There are reports from various groups, for and against, which I have read. I came to realise that Stop HS2is a huge socio-political issue which the mainstream media (and to be fair also the alternative media I tend to read) are simply not covering in all its complexity.

In this article, I’d like to draw attention to a few issues. The judicial review launched by Chris Packham has just failed on appeal and that’s a real shame, but the struggle is far from over. Various court cases are in progress and these people need our support, as well as the camps which are springing up to protect threatened areas of natural beauty. Nobody is against a railway in itself, but the story is far more nuanced than that.

[Read More]

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Montpellier: Families evicted, buildings occupied!

By: fawda - August 8th, 2020  Filed under: News

On July 10 2020, in front of associations, collectives, squatters and unions, while the préfet was reassuring about the squats situation during the summer, and was only talking about the “problematic” situation of the former Institut Bouisson Bertrand, he was actually preparing evictions for the 23rd. Evictions that affected two buildings in the city centre, putting around 50 vulnerable people and families on the street, and others in detention in CRA. The generous solution provided: 3 nights in a hotel and a return to the violence of the tent in the street.

Knowing the CV of the current préfet of the Hérault, Jacques Witkowski, we had not believed in his promise of the 10th, and therefore decided to squat this building owned by the council which had remained empty and walled up for too long, since 15 July, in order to rehouse the people that Jacques put outside during the heat wave, and during the biggest health crisis we have experienced since the beginning of the century, thus directly endangering the people concerned and the population of Montpellier. [Read More]

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Berlin: Syndikat evicted, Day X demonstration

By: fawda - August 7th, 2020  Filed under: News

So sorry for our abrupt exit earlier. But the eviction, as foreseeable as it might have been, has taken us all mega hard at the moment of the execution. Hopefully some of you are at Herrfurthplatz right now, for the neighbourhood demonstration after our eviction.

Regardless of that, today is Day X, which means that the angry Sponti of the Interkiezionale will take place at 9pm at Richardplatz. We will evaluate the last few days and get back to you as soon as we have coped with the efforts of the last time.

But tomorrow we will publish all information about our anti-repression structure, because unfortunately the escalation strategy of the cops has led to many arrests and charges. But we deal with it the same way we deal with our fight: together, in solidarity & we don’t leave anybody alone! Independent of us, EA and Gesa support will continue to work until everyone is out. Deep thanks from us to all who do this.

We just want to say thank you after these incredibly intense days & weeks! Thanks to all of you who have supported us in so many ways until this day and made sure that we could experience this day at all. Thanks to all the encouragement, the time, the nerves, the know-how, the capacities and our own integrity. [Read More]

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Berlin: Action Week for Leibig34, 07-13.09.20

By: fawda - August 6th, 2020  Filed under: Communique, News

International Call for the defence of Liebig34

Liebig 34 is being threatend by eviction. When state, cops and the owner want to evict, they will only have a desaster on their hands.
As an anarcha-queer-feminist selforganized house-project without cis-men, directly at the square „Dorfplatz“ in Friedrichshain, Liebig 34 is a place where resistive actions and collective moments are decided and organized. A place where self-organization becomes a dangerous word, where a project is becoming a starting point of struggles and not just a space of self-reference and alternative entertainment. The project itself has taken part in the planning of many of demonstrations, published numerous calls and texts and carried out various radical actions. But it is also a symbol of radicalization and empowerment for the antagonistic scene in Berlin and in Germany, as it shows how to fight various forms of resistance.
Liebig34 consists of a collective which is working with a focus to overcome more and more internalized structures of capitalism and patriarchy. In a world where patriarchy makes up one of the main pillars of the capitalist system, militant feminist groups and collectives, which make clear that the resistance and the fighting back is not a cis-men privilege, are more than necessary. In a patriarchal world, in which patriarchy and capitalism are intervoven, it is more than necessary to actually fight patriarchy and not have it be a side note in a text. Let us not be divided by oppression and let’s fight together in this for a liberated society. [Read More]

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Birmingham: Report back from Jellytot StopHS2 courtcase

By: sisulscz - August 5th, 2020  Filed under: Announcement, Communique

There are currently several courtcases going on prosecuting Stop HS2 activists, whilst HS2 Limited recently announced that their chief executive earned £659,000 last year, making him the highest paid UK government official. The board of directors got £1.6m remuneration in total … and this was all paid for by our taxes!? Instead of this greed and corruption being investigated, at the end of July young tree protector Jellytot faced charges at Birmingham High Court for allegedly breaking an injunction seventeen times. Defending ancient woodland in Warwickshire is the alleged crime!
[Read More]

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Paris: eviction of the young migrants camp set up in Jules Ferry Square

By: fawda - August 4th, 2020  Filed under: News

The camp, which housed more than 70 young people considered by several associations as foreign minors, in the Jules Ferry square in the centre of Paris, was evicted Tuesday morning. The young people were directed to a gymnasium and hotels.

After more than a month camping in the Square Jules Ferry in central Paris, some 70 young migrants who claim to be minors were evicted on Tuesday 4 August.
The eviction, which was carried out peacefully, ended at around 8:30 a.m. With masks on their faces, the young people were accompanied on buses by agents of the Ile-de-France prefecture and the Paris City Hall, under the watchful eye of a few police officers standing back. An eviction order had been posted by the police on Sunday evening in the camp.
Forty-eight young people were taken to the Japy gymnasium in the 11th arrondissement. Thirty others, more vulnerable due to medical conditions – including seven young girls – were housed in social hotels.
Evaluated as adults by several departments, the young men present in the camp are currently awaiting their appeal against this evaluation. In the meantime, no accommodation arrangements are planned for them. [Read More]

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Berlin: Successful demo despite police violence

By: fawda - August 3rd, 2020  Filed under: Communique, News

Press release of the Interkiezionale
Berlin, August 3, 2020

On Saturday august 1st, an angry and powerful demonstration took place under the motto “Get out of the defensive”. The demonstration was directed against the announced evictions of left-wing projects, such as Syndikat, Meuterei, Potse and Liebig34. It also wanted to send a signal against the shift to the right and the increasingly authoritarian state [1]. The demonstration of 3,000 people (count from 20:18) was attacked and dissolved by the police after a quarter of the demonstration route. Later, an angry spontaneous demonstration moved through Prenzlauer Berg, showing that the police could not stop the protests.

The Interkiezionale coalition of threatened projects and supporters considers the demonstration a success. True to the motto “Get out of the defensive”, the active participation of many soldiers made it possible to give the demonstration a resistant expression and not to let the police attacks take away the street. Instead, the demonstration drew attention to places of repression and brought their anger against the everyday structural violence by police and capital to the streets. Places such as the job centre, the SPD office or the luxury new building on Flughafenstraße were targeted. [Read More]

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Zürich: new wagenplatz taken

By: fawda - July 31st, 2020  Filed under: Communique, News

Today 31 july, we have taken the space between Bernerstrasse, Aargauerstrasse and Depotweg to create a wagenplatz here. A home is now being created here, a non-commercial place where we want to live in a self-determined way. We also want to give a strong signal against the expulsion of the middle and low-income earners from the quarters and the city centre, which is actively driven by the city.

Zurich West now resembles a Lego landscape consisting of overpriced apartments, hotel complexes and office buildings. Living in the city is becoming increasingly expensive, affordable housing is scarce. The city of Zurich is actively driving this development, as was made clear with the example of the Juch eviction to make space for trucks to turn around.

We are not fundamentally against parking lots and trucks, but we do revive them! [Read More]

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Paris: Eviction from the Saint-Denis Canal migrant camp

By: fawda - July 29th, 2020  Filed under: News

Nearly 1,500 migrants were “sheltered” on Wednesday when they were expelled from the Aubervilliers camp north of Paris. The associations fear the reformation of a camp within a few weeks. They denounce the repeated dismantling without any real solution.

The migrant camp located along the Saint-Denis canal in Aubervilliers, in the north of Paris, was evicted on Wednesday 29 July. As early as 6am, a large police presence squared the area, where nearly 1,500 people were settled.

“This operation is the logical continuation of all the operations we have been carrying out for several months,” Paris police prefect Didier Lallement, who was present at the scene, told reporters. “I wanted to evacuate the camps on the outskirts of Paris and make sure that migrants do not gather in the camps for the entire Paris police force and the three neighbouring departments” he added. [Read More]

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