Rotterdam: letter from the Tweebosbuurt

By: fawda - January 27th, 2020  Filed under: News

Some inhabitants wrote a public letter to call to support Anton. Note that it is based on their current understanding of the situation.

“Hello, we’re a group of inhabitants of the neighborhood of Tweebosbuurt in Rotterdam, Netherlands. We’re organizing against it’s demolition and the gentrification of the District for several months. The situation were actually in our favor, the court made a decision against the demolition. However, during the past few days, police of Rotterdam started an awful harassment campaign against the inhabitants of the neighborhood. 25 people were arrested in the past few days, 19 activists supporting the local struggle and 6 other inhabitants during “random” identity controls. A police car is driving by our street two or three time every hour, day and night, and they ask ID documents to people walking in the streets of the neighborhood. If that person “looks like an activist” or is not able to immediately provide ID documents they’re immediately locked up for several hours. Several people (at least 3) got beaten up in their cells. One of them (EU citizen) got evicted of the country after 30 hours of custody because she was walking her dog without a leach in the neighborhood. Another one is still in detention and is facing deportation in a country where he’s danger, and is not provided any medical care in detention despite several broken bones during his arrest. [Read More]

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Rotterdam: Alarming situation in Tweebosbuurt

By: fawda - January 26th, 2020  Filed under: News

The situation in Tweebosbuurt suddenly changed.

Two days ago, one of the squat got illegally evicted and we discovered that Vestia, the company owning the buildings we squat, illegally added new documents to the court case against one of the squats in the last moment so we cannot defend from them. We also heard that someone from the neighborhood got attacked tonight in the streets with a metal pipe because he was parking his bike close to the squat that was evicted a few days ago. Hopefully he’s not hurt. The attackers ran always after a single hit. In the same time, we’re facing an awful harassment campaign by the police. A car is assigned to the neighborhood day and night, and they control everyone of us any time we walk in the neighborhood. Some inhabitants are almost locked up inside because of police harassment. Someone have been even arrested twice in two days. In addition to the 19 arrested during the eviction two days ago, 5 other people living in the neighborhood got arrested during ID controls without legal motives already. Another person is missing, probably also arrested. We don’t know for sure because police refuses to give us any information. Three of them were injured during the arrest or during custody. [Read More]

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Milan (Italy): updates from the resistance against the attempt to evict Brancaleone

By: fawda - January 24th, 2020  Filed under: News

January 21, 2020 – Milan: Branca Still Holds Out. Two Comrades on the Roof:
The operation to clear the Brancaleone squat at 1 Piazza Alfieri began this morning.
Despite the cold and the now 12 hours on the roof thanks to being pissed off and the determination to resist, 2 comrades are still on the roof and intend to stay there as long as possible.
There are solidaritarians in the square at the front of the building who are stubbornly refusing to leave the comrades on the roof alone.
The night will be long and cold, but together we will warm it with the flame of our anger that burns to the sound of good music.
Herbal teas and good food await us here and all are welcome.
Some angry and cold comrades [Read More]

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Rotterdam: Two other evictions and 19 new arrests in Tweebosbuurt

By: fawda - January 23rd, 2020  Filed under: Communique, News

Yesterday, one apartment was evicted by the police on Tweebosbuurt. On their way back, the police stopped in front of one of the squats in the neighborhood and tried to get in. This place is protected by house peace and an ongoing legal procedure.
The inhabitants went outside to talk to the police and ask them to stop. The police refused to give the reason of their presence, and asked for everyone’s ID (some people were even still inside) without legal justifications. Two employees from Vestia were with them, laughing at the situation. Some inhabitants refused this abusive and illegal control. Somebody was arrested. They brought them at Zuidplein Police Station for a few hours, and physically forced them to give fingerprints and took pictures of their face. They got out of the police station 4 hours latter and came home safely.
We though it was going to calm down, but we were wrong. Today, we saw the neighborhood police going back and forth Tweebosstraat controlling people’s ID. One of the inhabitants rang to the door of one of the squat and got arrested almost immediately while he was walking in. Some people went downstairs immediately and asked the police the reason for this arrest. They wouldn’t say. They asked for everyone’s ID again, without any legitimate motive. People insisted to know the reason of the arrest, and they answered “You don’t have anything to do with this kind of people, go home and let us do our job”. Most likely, this was a racist statement because the person that was arrested was obviously not Dutch. They threatened that person of being “removed” of the country. [Read More]

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Germany: Hambi Stays

By: sisulscz - January 18th, 2020  Filed under: Communique

The news have reached us yesterday that the german government has decided that the Hambacher Forest should not be cut down. This is a statement of the Hambacher Forest Press Team:

This news brings us neither joy nor despair. We interpret this as part of a political strategy aimed at delegitimising the Hambacher forest occupation. In the following points we clarify this as an attack on the climate justice movement.

Mike from the Hambacher Forest says “I can’t accept that Hambacher Forest is used as a smokescreen to hide the ongoing ecocidal and imperialistic policy of the German state”
[Read More]

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Brighton: Don’t despair, organise! DIY Kodak Collective squatted night shelter

By: fawda - January 14th, 2020  Filed under: Communique, News

London Road in Brighton is a clear example of the austerity crisis in Britain. The road is lined with closed businesses and people in every doorway. On Christmas Eve, a group of community activists opened the doors to a squatted night shelter with a sign that read “Room at the Inn”, inviting rough sleepers to get warm over the Christmas week. The DIY Kodak Collective, named after the photography shop that used to be there, is still holding the shelter weeks later – as well as space for people to sleep, there are daily communal meals, a place to create art and a free shop. The building has become somewhere safe, warm and creative for homeless people to escape the winter weather, socialise and sleep, and, as it is a DIY shelter, people are able to exercise their own autonomy when it comes to using the space.
[Read More]

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Athens: Matrozou 45 and Panaitoliou 21 resquatted et again evicted

By: fawda - January 12th, 2020  Filed under: News

We are tearing down walls for freedom

The recapture of Matrozou 45 and Panaitoliou 21 is an act against the fear imposed by state repression. It is a signal of resistance and a rallying cry for escalation. Let us not leave our neighborhoods and nature in the heat of development plunder. Do not accept the displacement of our lives. Keep the parks, squares and hills free. Let us oppose the mercenaries of the state. Let us intensify the struggles against the exploitation of labor. Let us completely take up the struggle for survival and freedom. The struggle is neither legal nor illegal.

Together with dozens of anarchist / antisocial companions, we are taking back the community’s homes in order to meet housing needs that would not have been possible without this occupation, to re-open solidarity structures and re-establish free-living relationships without hierarchy, reopen homes in the neighborhood and in the movement with events, celebrations and organization. [Read More]

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Greece: Repression, eviction and dispossession in New Democracy’s Greece

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

The latest attack on the squatting movement in Greece is the preamble for a massive operation of housing dispossession by the right-wing government.

Dimitris Indares was still in his pyjamas when the police knocked on his door in the neighborhood of Koukaki, in Athens, in the early hours of Wednesday, December 18. Not long after that, he was lying down on the floor of his home’s terrace, with a Special Operations policeman’s boot on his head. He and his two adult sons were beaten up, handcuffed, blindfolded and taken under police custody. What was Indares’ crime? He had refused to let the police go through his home without a warrant in its operation to evict the squat that was right next door. [Read More]

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SqEK (Squatting Everywhere Kollective) is dead

By: sisulscz - January 7th, 2020  Filed under: essay

Well, well, WELL. Here we are, it’s been the best part of a decade and now
SqEK is dead. I have mostly enjoyed my time being part of Squatting
Everywhere Kollective (SqEK) ever since I popped up at the London 2010
meeting, having seen a post on Indymedia UK (RiP). On the whole, being a
member of the collective has been a productive and inspiring time. I have
written a few book chapters and journal articles about squatting, a couple
in collaboration with people, and none of these things would have happened
if I hadn’t got off my arse and taken that train up to London.

The annual conferences have been an amazing opportunity to engage with local
squatter and radical leftwing movements in places like Barcelona, Berlin,
Catania, Copenhagen, Paris, Prague and Rome. Disparagingly described by
someone leaving the collective back then as “just people meeting up to go
visit various squats,” these meetings have actually been amazingly fertile
encounters between us as SqEK and social centre participants in places like
Klinika (Prague, recently evicted), Can Mas Deu (Barcelona), New Yorck im Bethanianen (Berlin), Candy Factory and Trampoline House (Copenhagen), Poortgebouw (Rotterdam), Studentato Occupato (Catania), La Gare XP and Transfo (Paris).
[Read More]

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