House Occupation News

Amsterdam: demonstration against gentrification

Call out by the Radikale Anti Anti Kraak (R.A.A.K.) for a demonstration against gentrification on saturday 9 July 2022, 16:00, at Marie Heinekenplein in Amsterdam.

Gentrification does not just happen. It is a direct result of state policies and the system we live in: large corporations see potential to make money off a neighbourhood, and the state creates space for them to do this. Social housing gets sold and becomes private housing, more expensive stores are opened, and soon the original residents realize that they cannot afford to live in their neighbourhood anymore. More and more people with low income, especially people of colour and migrants, are forced to move to the outskirts of the city, and wealthier people take their place. Public spaces are no longer public but only affordable for people with high income. Gentrification does not solve poverty, but creates it, while moving it out of sight from wealthier people and tourists.

On the 13th of June, we squatted an abandoned building owned by the municipality in the Pijp, one of the most gentrified neighbourhoods in Amsterdam. Besides housing people, we are creating a much needed space that does not revolve around money. We are providing a place for people to relax, drink coffee and tea, or enjoy free food, as well as a free shop for people to bring and collect clothes, and a place to do laundry for those who cannot afford to wash it somewhere else. We are taking direct action against gentrification, rather than waiting for the municipality to solve the problems that their own policies helped to create.

Sadly enough, the municipality has decided to press charges and is attempting to evict us. Most likely, we will have to leave our beautiful place on the 14th of July.

We will not leave silently. We want to make a collective sound against gentrification, and for direct action through squatting. We will listen to some speeches, walk around de Pijp, and afterwards enjoy some soup and music.

Migrants are not to blame for the lack of affordable housing, the unjust system we are living in is. If you disagree with this, then you are not welcome and we ask you to stay home. If you agree, come show your support and let the gentrifiers hear the voice of the community. Homes for people, not for profit!

R.A.A.K. (Radikale Anti Anti Kraak)
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
raak [at] riseup [dot] net
https://squ.at/r/8o2o

Some squats in the Netherlands: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/NL/squated/squat
Groups (social centers, collectives, squats) in the Netherlands: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/NL
Events in the Netherlands: https://radar.squat.net/en/events/country/NL

Radar https://squ.at/r/8tnz

Susa Valley: new squatted shelter in Cesana-Torinese

In almost a year since the last eviction of the Casa Cantoniera in Claviere, we stayed here, in this valley, on this bloody and racist border, close to the people who challenge and overcome it every day, despite being forced to do so “illegally”: controlled, rejected and violated by the state and its armed forces. In the same valley where thousands of “migrants” with “the good papers”, called tourists, transit undisturbed. In the same valley where only in January this year the border killed two people, Fatallah Belhafif and Ullah Rezwan.

As of today, we return to organize in a place that has been abandoned for decades, which now belongs to nobody but lives thanks to the people who inhabit, build and self-manage it, in opposition to one and all states and laws that would like to repress any form of collective and individual autonomy.

We have continued and will continue to struggle by reappropriating and building free and inclusive spaces. Places untethered from the violent, racist and infantilizing dynamics proper to the institutions, manifested on the French-Italian border in the Western Alps, in the Massi Refuge in Oulx, in the Red Cross (which participates in rejections in cooperation with the police) and in the Italian and French control and repression apparatus*.

We remained here, organizing on this border, not to carry out humanitarian and welfarist work FOR the “migrants,” but as a political choice to stand and fight WITH the people who transit through these valleys.

Today, more than ever, there is a racialization of welcoming and “solidarity.” Since the beginning of the war, associations, individuals, municipalities, states and the media have focused their actions, time and funds on Ukrainian refugees. So we ask: does this solidarity exist because the people in question are white? Or because they are Christian?
We have chosen to fight with all victims of war and imperialism.

It is natural that fighting against oppressions does not prevent their reproduction. We keep in mind the violence that occurred in the Casa Cantoniera of Oulx and we will try to live and create a space that attempts to deconstruct and manage violence.

This new refuge is not born in barren land, but in a valley (the Susa Valley) that has been resisting for decades fighting for the preservation and reappropriation of its lands against the shameful HST project and the world in which it is inscribed. A world of industry, unnecessary large-scale works and destruction of the environment in which we live, a world that pushes more and more people into exile.

We therefore invite you to join the struggle,
in all territories where the frontier leaves its traces,
in all territories we must fight it.

Around 20 Digos are already here checking the area. We call all comrades to support and show them that here we will stay and here we’ll resist.

FREEDOM, HURRIYA, LIBERTÀ!

Nuovo rifugio autogestito
18 Via Giovanni Battista Armand
10054 Cesana TO
Italy
https://squ.at/r/8t9w

Migrants related groups https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/topic/sans-papiers
Some squats in Italy: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/IT/squated/squat
Some groups (social centers, collectives, squats) in Italy: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/IT
Events in Italy: https://radar.squat.net/en/events/country/IT

Amsterdam: Ferdinand Bolstraat 14 squatted

On the 13th of June we squatted a building on Ferdinand Bolstraat 14 ground floor. This house is owned by the municipality of Amsterdam and has been empty for over a year. We are a group of people in need for housing who found in squatting the only solution in order to live in Amsterdam. Houses stay empty for speculation, rent prices increase, council housing is sold of privately and the working class is being pushed out of the city. We decided to squat in de Pijp because it is a classic example of a beautiful neighborhood ruined by gentrification. We work in the city for minimum wage but like many other cannot afford to live here. We’re sick of exploitation, having our wages stolen from us while barely surviving. We’re sick of getting pushed to the outskirts while traveling to the pijp to serve food to yuppies in a neighborhood we cannot afford to live in. We will not stay quiet, we will not stay hidden.
We take, expropriate and we occupy what we believe is ours to take, and we encourage others to do the same. Gentrification is class war. Together we will resist, build spaces where we can rely on each other outside and against the capitalist system. We don’t think money should determine anyone’s life choices. Therefore we decided to squat Ferdinand Bolstraat 14 in order to house people, open a free  shop and a social centre where people can come together, find what they need and politically organize.

R.A.A.K.
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
raak [at] riseup [dot] net
https://squ.at/r/8o2o

Some squats in the Netherlands: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/NL/squated/squat
Groups (social centers, collectives, squats) in the Netherlands: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/NL
Events in the Netherlands: https://radar.squat.net/en/events/country/NL

Indymedia https://indymedia.nl/node/52186

Athens (Greece): International day of action in defence of Exarchia neighborhood, 25 June 2022

25 June / Demonstration in Exarchia Square

The construction of the metro station on Exarchia square and the redevelopment of Strefi Hill are expected to start during the summer months, according to reports in the mainstream media, but also according to notifications by the Municipality of Athens to shops located in the square.

The government’s ultimatum is the final blow to the character of the historic neighborhood of Exarchia. The construction of a Metro stop on the square, the conversion of the Polytechnic school into a museum, the attempted eradication of the monument of Alexandros Grigoropoulos through the construction of luxury apartment buildings on Mesologgiou Street, the surrender of Strefi Hill to private interests (which includes the cementing of the park’s paths, cutting down trees, placing cameras, gates and security posts to control the entrance) are part of the overall designs for the gentrification of the area, the transformation of the neighborhood into a tourist destination, the development of control and repression.

The displacement of the most impoverished people is a consequence of gentrification, since finding housing is rendered impossible due to the increase in rents, spread of airbnb and the onslaught of investment companies. The process of gentrification is normality for the State and Capital, while it is a violent process of uprooting for those connected to the area as they are forced to leave it.

This particular Metro station is clearly not built “for the benefit of the citizens”, as the “independent” journalists strive to convince us. Exarchia is served by a large public transport network that covers the whole neighborhood, wherever someone is located. It is provocative for those who are responsible for the increasing cost of living to talk about “serving the citizens”.

The capitalist parties who, by their neoliberal policies, are responsible for the price increases in electricity, rents, fuel and food. For the impoverishment and misery of even larger sections of society who are excluded from basic goods.

The Metro in the square will destroy one of the few public spaces in the center of Athens and the only neighborhood square, by cutting down all the trees, placing escalators in the center of the square, concrete ventilation boxes, building a desert land where nothing can grow on the 1.5 cm high slab. For the next ten years the square will be transformed into a vast construction site fenced off by metal sheets, noise and environmental pollution, with the prospect of being transformed from a meeting place, a place where resistance is grounded and socialized, to a simple passage that will serve the unimpeded flow of consumption and production.

This is why the crucial point of the neighborhoods defence at this juncture is the opposition to the construction of the Metro.

In conditions of a capitalist crisis and the pandemic, the state is developing a unified strategy of preventative counter-insurgency in the face of the risk of uncontrolled social explosions. It is in this context that the bill restricting demonstrations was passed, and that the criminal violence of the repressive forces is intensified, which culminated about a year ago with the brutal beating of a protester in Nea Smyrni neighborhood.

It is in this same framework that squat evictions were ordered, that the university asylum was abolished and university police was established, grassroots trade unionism and strikes criminalized, activists arrested and persecuted.Part of this same strategy is the state designs to subjugate a neighborhood with a rich history of resistance, a neighborhood that is a global symbol for the struggles against power, exploitation and oppression. The state has evacuated squats of struggle, self-organized shelters for refugees and migrants, has drowned the whole neighborhood with chemicals, has placed political spaces of struggle under surveillance, has forcibly removed hundreds of refugees and migrants, women, men and children, from the area and imprisoned them in concentration camps.

Over time, however, this area has been stained with the blood of dozens of fighters who have experienced beatings, torture and lynchings by the forces of repression, culminating in the state murders of the rebellious youths M. Kalteza outside the Polytechnic University on 17/11/1985 and A. Grigoropoulos on 6/12/2008 in Mesologiou Street.

Because what is really dangerous for the State are the values and the visions of class solidarity, militant resistance, spontaneity, social self-organization, anti-racism, coexistence and respect for different people regardless of gender or origin, the history of struggles and the dream of a world of equality and justice, now deeply rooted in a society in which the bosses have nothing to promise but poverty, repression and fascism. And it is these values, the proposals and the struggles they generate that the state wants to uproot from Exarchia, from the city center and from every neighborhood.

The enforced “development” of the city center and its transformation into a tourist resort, a vast construction site of dirty money, that was called Grand Promenade. The change of use of buildings which until recently have been part of our social fabric and are now turned into museums, the sterilization of public universities, the destruction of public spaces and the destruction of green spaces, the increase in rents, the privatization of the Strefi Hill, the modification of the residential character of neighborhoods into commercial zones, all this means our dispossession of the spaces where social life develops. All this signals the intensification of the class attack by the State, Capital, real estate agencies, big developers and all kinds of rich landlords against poor and excluded people. It marks the transformation of the neighborhood into a tourist resort.

In this context, there have been attempts for years now to change the character of Exarchia, so that it ceases to play the important role it had in the wider social and class struggles and becomes an alternative entertainment center, where even the history of the struggles itself becomes a product for consumption.

But no matter how much the state and capital strive to make Exarchia cease to be a field of political, social, class processes and impose “normality”, they will find thousands facing them who will defend it. Those of us who live, work, act and hang out in Exarchia, who have this neighborhood as a reference place, and who defend it as a neighborhood of the world “that houses many worlds”; a neighborhood where people of all genders, ages and origins can co-exist with respect. Where class solidarity can be a living reality. Where the questioning of state-capitalist brutality can flourish and forms of social self-organization can develop. Where the “different” and the “downtrodden” can find refuge. Where the history of struggle meets the struggles and resistances of today. Where the dream of a world of equality and justice can continue to take root in the city center. Because the “normal” they want to impose is the normality of individualism, cannibalism, inequality, control and surveillance.

For all these reasons we call for a nationwide – international day of actions to defend the neighborhood of Exarchia

We invite you to organize diverse actions of solidarity and defense of the neighborhood of Exarchia. This struggle is a struggle for the defense of every neighborhood, every center of resistance, every place where rebellion is born and social self-organization and class solidarity develop against the mafia of State and Capital that crush our lives.

Coordination of Action for the defence of Exarchia

[9 June 2022 / Indymedia-Athens.]

Seville: CSOA la Leona illegally evicted by force and without court order

After several months of collective work and some very intense weeks preparing the space, on Thursday May 19th it was finally time to make it public and open the space to anyone who wanted to get closer and get involved. Many people came to show their support and joy. There was finally a Self-Managed Squatted Social Center in Seville, after so many years.

We didn’t lose our cool when the police approached, as we were prepared to face the situation, with about a hundred people nearby, with the assembly well organised and united, including a mediator and a lawyer. We told the police that the building had been occupied by us for weeks, so they would need a court order to evict us, which they obviously didn’t have.

After standing for hours in front of the doors, at around 10pm an officer asked to speak to the comrades inside. Then the disappointment became clear: the police put on their helmets, took an aggressive posture and went to the door. They pushed us back without a second thought, until we were in a position where it would be impossible to see what they were doing to the comrades inside. So, in front of everyone out on the pavement, and in front of many cell phone cameras recording and recording everything that was happening, they opened the door by force, with great violence. When they entered, threatening them with tasers, they forced comrades to lie on the ground to later identify them and force them out.

To put the icing on the cake of the series of rules they were breaking, half of the cops weren’t wearing identification badges, because “if there is a fire it burns” or because “I dropped it”, among other regrettable excuses. They refused to identify themselves, and told the lawyer that we should wait to receive the official police report (which was never given to us).

So they ended the space that had just been born, in a building which which had been abandoned for nine years and to which we were going to give a new life, as you can read in our opening manifesto. But, as we said at the time: They may trash the spaces, but never the ideas.

While the anger and frustration we feel at this situation is enormous, we are not surprised either. It is already common practice in our city that the powerful, and the repressive agents who protect them, ignore their own laws. Many spaces have already been illegally evicted, in the heat of the moment, without order and in an intimidating and violent way. We already know that private property is defended above everything and everyone.

All this only strengthens us in what we do, what we think and who we are. We will never forget the moment of unfurling the banner and reading the manifesto, nor the many hours that dozens and dozens of people spent defending our space, their space. Let’s keep squatting and resisting.

WE ARE BACK.

ONE LOST, ANOTHER OCCUPATION!

I WOULD BE ASHAMED TO BE A POLICEMAN!

IN YOUR HOME AND IN YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD, LIBERTARIAN FEMINISM!

DEATH TO THE STATE AND LONG LIVE TO ANARCHY!

CSOA La Leona
Calle Muñoz León 5, Seville, Spanish State
csoa_laleona [at] riseup [dot] net
https://squ.at/r/8s0u
https://csoalaleona.wordpress.com/

Directory of squats in the Iberian Peninsula:
Spanish State: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/ES/squated/squat
Catalonia: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/XC/squated/squat
Basque Country: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/XE/squated/squat

Directory of groups (social centers, collectives, squats) in the Iberian Peninsula:
Spanish State: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/ES
Catalonia: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/XC
Basque Country: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/XE

Events in the Iberian Peninsula:
Spanish State: : https://radar.squat.net/en/events/country/ES
Catalonia: https://radar.squat.net/en/events/country/XC
Basque Country: https://radar.squat.net/en/events/country/XE

CSOA la Leona https://csoalaleona.wordpress.com/2022/05/20/desalojo-ilegal-de-csoa-la-leona-sin-orden-judicial-y-mediante-la-fuerza/
Freedom News https://freedomnews.org.uk/2022/05/27/spain-cops-raid-and-evict-lion-social-centre/

Amsterdam: house squatted at Amstelveenseweg 852

Since wednesday May 11 the house at Amstelveenseweg 852 is squatted. The owner of the house is “Werktrust Holding B.V.”, through the neighborhood we learned that their plan is to demolish this house to build 6 apartments. Despite the good condition of the building it has been empty for more than a year and will be demolished, most neighbors are against it and are engaged in an objection procedure.
Events will also be held here, keep an eye on the radar page of social center R.A.A.K. https://radar.squat.net/en/node/404448

R.A.A.K.
Amstelveenseweg 852
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
raak [at] riseup [dot] net
https://squ.at/r/8o2o

Autonomous Student Struggle (ASS)
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
https://squ.at/r/8qq3
https://astudentstruggle.noblogs.org/

Some squats in the Netherlands: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/NL/squated/squat
Groups (social centers, collectives, squats) in the Netherlands: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/NL
Events in the Netherlands: https://radar.squat.net/en/events/country/NL

Manchester: Persons Unknown Festival blasts back into action

From May 13th to 16th the Persons Unknown Festival returned, after a three-year break, to the same venue used for its inauguration back in 2019. For three days the disused swimming baths and leisure centre in Chorlton, Manchester, was transformed once again into a hub of art, activity and anarchism that is rapidly rising to become a serious contender to take Temporary Autonomous Arts‘ crown as the most ambitious event in the UK squat scene calendar.

PuF was facilitated by the Manchester squat community and ran in partnership with grassroots activist organisations from across the country, with the aim to support and promote a diverse range of campaigns through workshops, art, and live music.

Organisers chose to focus on workshops and an inclusive, friendly atmosphere rather than all-night parties and hedonism, with a no smoking policy being respected up until 8pm, and music and performances finishing at a very civilised 2am. A cafe space complete with busker’s wagon supplied seemingly infinite amounts of tea, cake, curry, pie and more throughout the weekend, and packs of multi-generational dogs scampered and frolicked around the expansive sports hall between the legs of the assembled crusties and curious passers-by who populated the event.

Friday night opened with a queer clown cabaret of poetry and performance on the swimming pool stage, and although a late outbreak of Covid prevented a few of the slated bands performing, the weekend featured performances from Greek anarcho-punks Lepetka, hardcore rave style balkan ska political madness from NFA Queer Punx, live jungle from Amen Sage plus turns from local artists including soulful hip-hop stylings from Renee Stormz and visceral poetic noise from Gurnal Gaddafi.

Workshops were well attended, including a Practical Squatter’s talk, a discussion on the implications of class in activism, the development of mycotopias using the patterns of fungal growth as a model for organisation and community building, and art without borders to discuss how art has been sanitised and infantilised and often form has been made to be the priority over substance …

The venue was a rotten shit-hole when they opened it on Monday, but by Friday the space was clean, welcoming and well-prepared for guests. The walls were decorated, meals were on time, and the toilets always had paper in them. Manchester’s squat scene and the organisers behind PuFestival absolutely smashed the weekend, facilitating a conscious, accessible, community-minded event that stayed true to their DiY roots and radically inclusive unpretentiousness. If you missed it, you missed out, so be sure to watch this space for more events organised by the PuF crew. Big up the Northern squat massive.

Hambach Forest (Germany): Summer Event, 21-24 July 2022

FOREST ANTI-SPE DAYS #3
CHAOS AND RAGE, SMASH EVERY CAGE

BORDERLESS CALL: JOIN US IN THE HAMBACHER FOREST FOR A GATHERING FOR ANIMAL LIBERATION!

In the factory farms and vivisection labs, our nonhuman comrades are already fighting back. The time is ripe – let’s share skills and perspectives on how to support their resistance! By “anti-speciesism” we don’t mean online activism, vegan capitalism or cop-hugging pacifism – we’re opening a space to plot against human supremacism, and we’ve no need for bureaucratic organizations of any kind.

Many animal rights groups have become a hotbed for fascist/homophobic/cissexist/macho/white supremacist/colonialist views and behaviour. Others promote liberalism, the state or single out human activists as animal “saviours”. We want to build on two years of anti-spe days explicitly pushing against these tendencies, uncompromising in our rejection of all forms of oppression and domestication. Let’s meet each other and make some trouble!

You can find us again in the Hambacher Forest, one of Europe’s largest autonomous spaces, still squatted after 10 years. (It’s a forest so be ready to camp).

We want the workshops to be more horizontal this year – you can help us by proposing your own! Some ideas we have so far:

– First aid/veterinary care for other animals
– Action planning/scouting
– Hunt sabotage
– Tech workshop
– Sharing international struggles
– Anti-civilisation anarchy + anti-speciesism
– Animal liberation + chaos
– Open discussion on abolishing pets
– Graffiti skillshare
– Self-defence
– Action climbing
– Movie night
– Theater performance (!?)
– Open mike night

Pack a sleeping bag – and coffee and peanut butter if you got it! Make it here however you can and see you in July!

More workshops/other info to be announced over next while. And be in touch if we can answer questions or otherwise help.

Make trouble + have fun (;

FASD

https://forestantispedays.noblogs.org/
Contact: forestantispedays@@@riseup.net

Amsterdam: R.A.A.K. New Social Center

New squatted social centre R.A.A.K. (Radikale Anti-Anti Kraak) opens its doors. Write an email to get involved or pass by to Douwes Dekkerstraat 18.

AIMS

We are openly anarchist and use methods that seek to built collective power against and alongside that of the state and capitalism. We want this space to be one that is welcoming,a space that encourages education and participation. We seek to strengthen and create bonds of solidarity to collectively support each other and fight back against that which oppresses us. Anyone who agrees with these aims and has a willingness to actively participate is welcome to help organise and run the space. We imagine and work towards a world in which everyone can truly be free, a world without hierarchy and oppression.

Principles

Mutual Aid – Acting together for shared benefit through the voluntary exchange of resources and services.

Distributed Power – No one has more power than anyone else. People work together on equal footing.

Direct action – Creating change or highlighting issues in a community without relying on government or other indirect methods to accomplish goals.

We don’t work with companies or the private sector
– We don’t work with the police or the state
– We are against all forms of exploitation and oppression including but not limited to those based on class, race, sex, sexuality, gender or ability, and we support trans and sex-worker inclusive feminism
– We organise in a supportive, inclusive way, free from bullying or abusive behaviour

Transformative Solidarity – We are committed to act in solidarity for the collective liberation of all; in particular, with folks who are being politically targeted: people of color, women, people who are muslim, LGBTQI+, people with disabilities, migrants, victims of the criminal ‘justice’ system, and all suffering under oppressive systems. Our feminism is trans and sex worker inclusive.

Respecting a diversity of tactics – We question the state’s monopoly of violence. We are against violence but not exclusively non violent. We are against classist, racist, colonial, capitalist, patriarchal and other structural forms of violence. We respect a diversity of tactics and will never police each other or others on the methods chosen for self defense.

Concrete Projects – We prioritize projects that: 1) Serve and educate the community; 2) Give people a sense of their own power; and, 3) Shift power from government and corporations to people and communities.

Inclusivity – We welcome and make space for anyone interested in our aims & principles.

Responsive – We value input from the community and want to respond directly to the needs and concerns of those around us. We accept responsibility for our actions as individuals and as a group.

Autonomy – Individual’s ideas and energies are important and encouraged. We are structured to limit any coercion or control that could interfere with a person’s rights of self direction and empowerment.

Joyous – In a world full of drudgery and fear, we bring playfulness and joy to our projects.

R.A.A.K.
Douwes Dekkerstraat 18
Amsterdam
The Netherlands
raak [at] riseup [dot] net
https://squ.at/r/8o2o

Some squats in the Netherlands: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/NL/squated/squat
Groups (social centers, collectives, squats) in the Netherlands: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/NL
Events in the Netherlands: https://radar.squat.net/en/events/country/NL

UK: The police want to impose a chilling list of conditions on an anarchist prisoner

UK anarchist Toby Shone was put on trial for terrorism last year. The charges – which were never proven – related to the 325nostate.net anarchist website. Toby was arrested in November 2020 in the Forest of Dean in Southwest England.

The prosecution against Toby was part of a wider police operation known as ‘Operation Adream’. The original charges were that the 325 website – which published reports of direct action – contained material ‘that would be useful to terrorists’, and that the site fundraised for ‘terrorist activities’.

The case is comparable with the 1997 Green Anarchist/Animal Liberation Front – or GANDALF – trial’, which accused the editors of Green Anarchist magazine and the Animal Liberation Front Supporters Group newsletter of “unlawfully inciting persons unknown to commit criminal damage”. However, Operation Adream went one step further by charging Toby with terrorism.

Toby told The Canary that “the implications of this case do not only concern anarchists”, but should be a warning to anyone who “wants to see actual social, political or environmental change”.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) eventually offered no evidence in relation to the terrorism case, and Toby was found not guilty.

However, he was convicted of possession of a small quantity of drugs with intent to supply, and was sentenced to three years and 9 months in prison.

Now, the Counter Terrorism Unit want to use the drugs conviction to apply for a Serious Crime Prevention Order (SCPO). The SCPO will enable the police to control his use of computers, bank accounts and other electronic devices for five years after he is released from prison. They can apply to renew the order indefinitely.

SCPO orders can be imposed by courts on people who have been convicted of ‘serious’ crimes. The orders are designed to severely limit people’s freedom by – in the words of the CPS – imposing “conditions considered appropriate for the stated purpose of protecting the public from serious crime”.

The CPS lists the crimes that qualify for the imposition of a SCPO order on its website. The list includes “drug trafficking”, but the crime has to be deemed by the court to be ‘serious’ in order for a SCPO to be imposed.

The application for the SCPO is due to be heard on 6 May at Bristol Crown Court. A solidarity demonstration is planned at the court at 8.30am.

Support Toby poster – https://www.brightonabc.org.uk/images/toby_may_6_demo.pdf
A poster in support of Toby – by Brighton ABC
Imprisoned since 2020
Toby was originally imprisoned in Wandsworth and had a hearing at the Old Bailey. His trial was eventually moved back to Bristol, to be tried locally, and Toby was moved to HMP Horfield in Bristol.

Recently Toby was moved again, this time to HMP Parc in Bridgend, after supporters spoke out about targeting and threats made against him by a right-wing prison officer.

The Canary interviewed Toby from his prison cell. He said about Operation Adream:

According to Operation Adream’s framework, anarchism is a terrorist ideology.

Reporting on and publishing communiques on direct action and sabotage is ‘glorifying terrorism’. Prisoner solidarity efforts for anarchist prisoners is ‘supporting terrorism’, collecting funds for those prisoners and for anarchist publications is ‘funding terrorism’.

Commenting on the initial terrorism charges against him, Toby stated:

The prosecutors were seeking to impose over a decade of prison on me. I’ll leave speculation aside, and I’ll mention that the charges were not dropped. Technically, the Crown offered no evidence to refute my defence statement and a ‘not guilty’ verdict was recorded.

According to Toby, the SCPO which is being sought against him is a politically motivated attempt to keep him, and those close to him, under close surveillance:

The SCPO is a method to keep me under continuous five year investigation, and de facto house arrest. It is simply a method of repression, which is intended to intimidate me, my family and my friends. To criminalise and place under surveillance those I’m close to, and to try to force me to change the way I choose to live, and with whom.

Toby described the conditions of the SCPO:

It is an attempt to force me to use cashless banking and payments. To control my use of phones, USBs and computers. Stop me using encryption and stop me from using any form of open source software such as Linux. And to stop me from using crypto currencies.

The SCPO order will make it very difficult for Toby to live collectively, as he did before his arrest. Toby told us:

In the papers filed against me, living collectively, ‘off grid’ in a ‘nomadic way’, is seen as a threat to the system. And it’s part of the ‘clandestine and subversive lifestyle’ that I must be stopped from pursuing. Really this means that anyone who is viewed as being ‘outside’ – if such a thing exists – of society, or the cops invented ideas of ‘normality’, can be targeted as an enemy of the state. And the police can invent whatever fictions they like to justify their control.

Toby relates the repression against him to a broader process. He said that it’s a move towards a society where the state gives itself more and more control, enabled by technological advances:

It’s possible to make a broad argument that society itself is transforming into a world where everything and everyone is trackable, monitored and profiled. Any realities that don’t conform to this new vision of how regulation and digitalization is to function is seen as a threat to power.

Toby also described how the control order would affect his life:

As to how it would affect my life, the control order demands constant contact with the police to inform them and seek permission for my contact with others. Use of cash, use of communication devices, my movements, where I sleep, or reside, my use of postboxes, storage units, restrictions on using a single bank account. The list is extensive.

Toby sees the order as something that is impossible to comply with, and – in fact – just a ploy to put him back in prison as soon as possible:

The order is not really intended to be complied with. It’s been drawn up in such a way as to be impossible to submit to. The aim of the ‘Anti Terrorist Unit’ is to put me back in prison as soon as possible after I am released, and try to frighten me from speaking out about what the endgame is.

The police are able to seek this SCPO against Toby because he has been convicted of intent to supply controlled substances. However, SCPOs are normally used against large-scale drug-dealing operations. This is confirmed by the CPS website which states that “The SCPO is intended for use against those involved in the most serious offences”. Far from fitting in to this categorisation, Toby’s drug conviction is comparatively insignificant.

We asked Toby to comment on the drug charges he was convicted for. He said:

The raids in Operation Adream took place against several addresses, which were collective living projects.

I was using medical marijuana and DMT to treat my cancer and related conditions. I also had joint possession of LSD and psilocybin. This was deemed ‘possession with intent to supply’ despite being simply a collective amount in a house project/hangout. These medicines are known for their potential rapid deconditioning effects, and their use for self analysis and reprogramming has been widely studied.

Toby said that the attempts by the police to paint him as a drug dealer are intended to hide the use of the SCPO to repress his political activity:

Police efforts to label me as a ‘drug dealer’ are smears and attempts to obscure revolutionary anarchism. I’m anti capitalist and against any gang or mafia type practices. I’m opposed to the use of hard narcotics and their supply.

I asked Toby whether this was his first time in prison. He said:

This is not my first time in the hands of the enemy. But this is the longest I have spent behind the door, having faced the rifles of the ‘Anti Terrorist Unit’, and the demands for such a long sentence.

Prison is a path which all non-conformists, dissidents and revolutionaries must face.

Toby maintains that prison needs to be abolished as an institution. He argues that prisons are used to oppress the “exploited classes”:

As for my observations, they are unchanged. Prison cannot be reformed. It must be destroyed along with the state and the society which requires it.

Prison is the institutional repression of the most exploited classes, and maintains the divide between the rich and the poor. It’s always been so, and always will be. There is no ‘rehabilitation’, only warehouses of suffering where they store men, women and children in conditions unlikely to engender anything but hostility, misery and hatred. however much they dress it up with lies and phantasms of redemption.

Toby sees Operation Adream – and the application for a control order against him – as “an attack on 21st century anarchism”.

According to Toby, police forces in Europe and Latin America have taken similar measures against anarchist insurrectionalist movements, but Operation Adream is significant because it took place in the UK. Toby said:

Anarchist insurrectionalism is already a major target in Europe and Latin America. The only novel thing is that this is the first time such an operation was conducted in UK.

Anarchist insurrectionalists believe in the need for constant social and class struggle, and attacks against the state. Insurrectionalists favour informal organisation based on affinity over the creation of permanent revolutionary institutions. Toby says that many anarchist insurrectionalists believe in organisation through affinity groups which are federated into larger flexible structures, but do not become formalised, and can remain responsive.

Toby sees Operation Adream as part of a wider state strategy which labels left-wing groups as ‘terrorists’:

The establishment of ‘left wing terrorism’, as a new [police] focus comes at a time of lethargy in the radical Left, despite the times we’re living in today, which are full of the conditions likely to create a real momentum towards resistance.

However, at an international level, a resurgence of anarchist, anti-civilization and anti capitalist action is taking place. And the state is aware of that fact, and seeks to cut any wild roses before they bud.

In fact, the labelling of militant parts of the Left as ‘terrorist’ by the British state isn’t really anything new. Supporters of the UK animal rights movement have consistently been branded both ‘terrorists’ and ‘domestic extremists’, and UK supporters of the Kurdish Freedom Movement have been imprisoned under anti-terror laws in recent years. The UK police have long been labelling radical ecological movements as ‘terrorist’, and have used Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act to interrogate suspected radicals from a broad range of social movements at UK borders.

A police counter-terrorism document – circulated in 2020 to medical staff and teachers as part of an anti-extremism briefing – included reference to groups ranging from the Anarchist Federation and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) to mainstream NGOs like Greenpeace and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

I asked Kevin Blowe from Network for Police Monitoring for a comment on the SCPO being sought against Toby. He said.

The SCPO is arbitrary punishment for a conviction Toby did not receive, imposed by counter-terrorism police who seem determined to avenge the state’s failure to find any evidence against him for alleged “terrorist” activities. If imposed, it is also almost impossible to comply with while maintaining any involvement in political activism, because the police must know everything about anyone he meets and talks to. It is, therefore, an unsubtle attempt to silence him.

Blowe concluded:

At a time when the government claims there are growing threats to the right of freedom of expression, Toby’s experience is a reminder that the biggest threat to free speech comes from the state itself.

Toby said that his case should not only be of interest to anarchists; it shows that the state will do what it can to repress and imprison everyone who chooses to struggle for change:

The implications of this case do not only concern anarchists, who have been under the microscope for some time, but anyone who is living in alternative way with their ideas or their actions, collective or not. Anyone who essentially wants to see actual social, political or environmental change will at some point put that into practice. And the state has prepared prisons for you.

Toby concluded with a call to organise for freedom, and for revolution:

That’s why we must realise what we’re up against, and organise. Revolution and freedom is the imperative.

Stay strong out there.

Source – https://www.thecanary.co/feature/2022/04/19/the-police-want-to-impose-a-chilling-list-of-conditions-on-a-uk-anarchist-prisoner/

Get involved
You can write to Toby at: Toby Shone A7645EP, HM Prison Parc, Heol Hobcyn John, Coity, Bridgend CF35 6AP
Donations can be made to: The Bottled Wasp
Sort Code: 08-92-99
Acc No: 65601648
IBAN: GB35 CPBK 0892 9965 6016 48
BIC: CPBK GB22
Ref: ADREAM

Toby’s SCPO hearing is taking place on 6th May at Bristol Crown Court. Supporters are welcome, and a solidarity demonstration is planned at 8.30am outside the court.

USA: Stop The Sweeps! Stop The War Against Our Homeless Neighbors!

Text from an outreach flyer about resistance to sweeps and evictions of houseless encampments. See below and here (pdf).

Millions of people sleep-rough in tents, doorways, or vehicles across North America. Police threats of violent arrest and seizure of their few belongings can annihilate any semblance of stability on any given day. Sweeps are a never-ending game of whack-a-mole. Homeless folks move to another spot, cops come again to inflict more violence and trauma.

Floods of capital force more from their homes and onto the streets. Displacement falls along historic lines of racist, colonial segregation. Indigenous, Black and Brown communities are attacked by colonization and gentrification – individuals can’t just ‘move along.’

Pandemics have long been a trauma for these communities, magnified for anyone who is homeless. The Covid-19 pandemic hit them hardest. That virus’ endless mutation and global persistence stems partly from exploitative pharmaceutical patent restrictions. The same pharmaceutical companies helped kickstart a nationwide opioid epidemic. Drugs soften the daily pain. They can even be fun. But they can magnify problems already faced by marginalized communities.

Private charity and government spending lets those with power and money claim they’re ‘doing something.’ Their privatized Homeless Industrial Complex instead profits off a gaping wound. They will never build enough housing, real treatment options, or even shelter beds for the ever-growing need – fuck City Hall’s endless stream of lies.

We must build new lines of solidarity and mutual-aid to leave this dystopia behind and build a new world!

A War On Homeless People
A loose network of corporations, agencies, and ‘concerned citizens’ dehumanize and brutalize homeless folks. Occasional claims to care about their well-being ring hollow as they subject our neighbors to a never-ending cycle of humiliation. This war is also a threat to keep everyone compliant – grateful for the few comforts we might cling to.

Capitalist investment in maintaining the oppressive status-quo incentives all media to focus on individual ‘failings.’ Poverty Porn is profitable. Systemic issues and reality-shaping decisions by the powerful are deliberately ignored. But many conservative and far-right media and politicians utilize outright fascist tactics to mobilize hatred against homeless folks.

The city of Seattle often features in US-wide fascistic narratives because other cities have seen a model in its interconnected state-corporate response. A massive industry of ‘nationally renowned’ homelessness-nonprofits works hard to meet the desires of state and corporate partners. But their double-edged support rarely meets people’s real needs, while cops keep on sweeping.

Vicious assaults on homeless folks are increasingly carried out by organized anti-homeless hate groups. Uniting private individuals with funding by corporate and conservative money, their propaganda focuses on sensationalized images of ‘trash.’ These groups cultivate ties with better recognized hate groups like the ‘Proud Boys.’

Media
Right-wing, radio, and tv, and political personalities have long peddled malicious narratives painting homeless people as utterly inhuman. Christopher Rufo is one major popularizer of this narrative. His right-wing filmmaking career launched highlighting the supposed ‘evils’ of harm-reduction work in Seattle and Vancouver, BC. Rufo’s next ludicrous film ignited US-wide fascistic fear-mongering against Critical Race Theory.

A local outlet of Sinclair Broadcast Group spun this into a broader fascist narrative in their propaganda trash Seattle is Dying. It depicted a city under simultaneous threat by a dehumanized homeless ‘enemy’ and a progressive establishment, showering love on business owners. The station then let one correspondent elaborate further with numerous heavily aired and promoted spots filmed at homeless encampments and sweeps. This ‘reporter’ was only discretely fired by Sinclair after he made a propaganda sizzle-reel for the local Proud Boys featuring a neo-Nazi song.

Hate Groups
Local Facebook pages and groups have become a central organizing platform for anti-homeless hate. Page titles often focus on the idea of ‘safety’ or the aesthetic attraction of their locale. Some are run by random local NIMBYs and small-business owners. Admins sometimes have ties associated with right-wing ‘dark money’ political spending. Some circulate well-funded lies and overt calls for vigilante violence against people on the streets. Others spread sensational imagery in order to dehumanize homeless people while contributing nothing towards a solution. Such groups increasingly exist targeting communities beyond major city limits, focusing on individual suburbs or semi-rural counties. Apps like Nextdoor are also seedbeds for these dangerous sentiments.

Isolated NIMBY arsonists have brutalized many encampments. There are organized groups that harass and even assault campers they try to entrap while arguing for or even carrying out their own sweeps. Their escapades are frequently promoted by right-wing corporate and social media.

Police
For years, the face of Seattle’s government outreach was the ‘Navigation Team’ of police officers and social workers. The latter complained of being props for the cops and city to claim they ‘offered services’ that didn’t meaningfully exist. The Nav Team’s purpose was really to facilitate sweeps, increasingly without notice. The Nav Team model was exported to many other cities. Its former head left, exposed insisting a sweep continue while a resident was found dead – he was promptly hired by Vancouver, WA to start a similar program.

Police’s personal sentiments are encapsulated by their powerful unions. The Seattle Police Officers Guild personally invited one anti-homeless hate group Safe to a candidate forum, while the Guild’s president hosted the head of another on his podcast. Shared bogus narratives demand aggressive policing to ‘solve the problem.’

The city claimed to abolish the Nav Team following the George Floyd Uprising. Then it created the HOPE Team to do the exact same thing.

What Can You Do?
Dehumanizing, brutalizing, then profiting off people is central to capitalism, racism, and settler-colonial power. Homelessness and genocidal displacement resides at the heart of this process. The path to a better world is made by those most profoundly impacted.

Self-organized community survival is already a daily fact of life for most homeless folks. All the ups and downs of relying on others in the same boat. On the smallest scale, individuals and small groups of housed people can provide concrete support to the mutual-aid folks are already doing. Understand that all our liberation is tied together.

If you’re housed: overcome your apprehensions, talk to your neighbors at the nearby the camp or squat. Find out, from their perspective, what assistance they need. A neighbor showing up to offer friendly help will be a welcome change from most interactions campers have.

Get together with friends or neighbors. Setting up a weekly meal or supply distro can provide a secure space for anyone who needs it. Organize with coworkers and community members to provide free resources or spaces, day and night.

Join or build networks working to stop the sweeps, end incarceration, and dismantle the colonizing system that is the crisis!

Find Inspiration, Take Action!

StopTheSweeps_IGD_Flyer_2022

Search Social Media for ‘Mutual Aid’ or ‘Food Not Bombs!’ + [Your City’s Name] or check out these groups fighting to Stop The Sweeps!

Seattle: @Stop_Sweeps_SEA (twitter) @stopthesweepsseattle (insta)
Austin: @Stop_Sweeps_ATX (twitter) Kalamazoo: @StopTheSweepsKZ (twitter)
Eugene: @stopthesweeps_eugene (insta) Corvalis: @StopTheSweepsCV (twitter+insta)
Portland: @StopSweepsPDX (twitter) @StopTheSweepsPDX (insta)
ItsGoingDown.org – @IGD_News (twitter) @its.going.down (insta)

IGD

Ann Arbor, USA: Statement from FIGHT Concord Pines

Statement from FIGHT Concord Pines [previously on S!N] re: the events of 4/11 and 4/12
Nuthatch’s tree sit at the Concord Pines site ended last week as a result of horrific violence towards them and their supporters. They descended and exited the site safely. Sometime after they left, the tree and others around it were cut down.
An employee of Toll Brothers’ land clearing contractor, William J. Lang Land Clearing, used his tree-clearing equipment to physically assault a protester at around 7am on Monday morning 4/11 and to fell multiple trees next to Nuthatch’s sit the next day at around 6:15pm, one of which struck the platform and nearly killed Nuthatch. We believe the contractor was aware of Nuthatch’s presence in the tree, as supporters informed him, Bill Lang, and onsite Ann Arbor Police Department officers of it on Monday morning. That morning, a supporter also heard the contractor state that he would not hesitate to kill anyone he found in the trees. When the supporter informed the AAPD officers onsite of this threat, the officers, of course, did nothing.

On Tuesday evening, after cutting trees and clearing brush on the site all day, the employee advanced towards Nuthatch’s sit in his machine. He cut four trees, which dropped towards the platform. One of the trees collided with the platform as it fell, knocking the platform askew and Nuthatch into the air. Their rope and climbing harness, the construction of the sit, good fortune, and responsive comrades saved their life. It appears to us that thanks in part to the Toll Brothers’ utter disregard for the most basic of worksite safety precautions and city and state governments’ cowardly, toothless approach to permitting and development, this violent Lang Land Clearing worker felt enabled to attempt murder on non-violent protestors twice in two days.
Supporters of Nuthatch who responded to their call for help met further violence at the hands of Code 3 Security, the Toll Brothers’ hired private security. These fully-armed goons threatened supporters with Tasers, shoved people into the mud, and illegally handcuffed four of them before Ann Arbor police arrived. Once they did, AAPD did nothing to address the extreme danger posed to everyone on the site by the continued presence of the Lang employee and took no action against the Code 3 “officers” despite having witnessed their violence against supporters.
FIGHT Concord Pines invites supporters to contact us at fightforhousing [at] protonmail [dot] com, donate to our bail fund, or attend any of our upcoming events for more information. (All inquiries motivated by a desire to leverage our fight in myopic City Council politics will be discarded.)

Bail fund link: https://www.gofundme.com/f/bail-out-our-forest-defenders

Berlin: Køpiplatz resquatted. We are here to reclaim what is ours

This was not just a piece of land to us. It was our home, it was family, it was a our place to welcome people from all over the world, to learn and support each other, where we could grow and connect. In the most simple and wonderful way, it was our community and our life. But now our family have been split up; and more than anything we want to be back together.

6 months have passed since the bullshit eviction of Køpiplatz and some things still haven’t changed; the ground still stays empty, except a couple of hired goons to watch over it, but now it is filled with the wreckage of what was once our homes and lives.

The offer we received from the state and Howoge was not designed to support us, but rather a ‘Catch 22′ that would split us up in a variety of unacceptable ways, including an offer to remove 70 percent and leave a slither of land only able to accommodate a couple of trailers. These offers were refused. As a wagenplatz we are all or nothing and we are still a family despite now being forced apart and scattered across Berlin, and we are still searching for a place to be back together.

Once again a wagenplatz directly neighbouring the Køpi building was evicted. The last one was 23 years ago, with the eviction of the Mad Max Wagenplatz, to the right of Køpi. This was for the purpose to build an old persons’ home, yet like countless other evictions the land has been left abandoned, and TWENTY THREE years later there is still a shell of a building and an empty site, that can be housing and spaces for many of us. Is that the future for Køpiplatz too?

Just like us the project spaces Meuterei and Syndikat that also still stand empty after their evictions; and Liebig 34 still have not been rehomed, while Rigaer 94 are still facing constant attacks from the state. We are here asking the BIG question.. FOR WHAT?? Why is it that people are losing their homes, spaces, lives and connections to something real? For nothing!?

And these are only a few examples from recent times. We feel we deserve to be treated fairly, and for everyone over the years who have been displaced from their spaces, we demand rehousing, a place for all of our comrades from Berlin and around the world, to continue to create something fabulous and self sufficient.

It is obvious that the tactics over these last years are attempts to dig our movement out from its roots, and to exhaust it with relentless attacks on our way of life. But their tricks won´t work! And our collective anger only brings us to act together, with solidarity and even more fearlessness.

We will not rest or be satisfied until its recognised that you can’t just evict us, sweep us under the carpet like we don’t exist and we will leave quietly and obediently. No! We remain committed to autonomous spaces, communities and continuing our way of life, no matter what the consequences.

Viva Køpiplatz! Viva all autonomous spaces! One struggle, one fight!

Køpi, Køpiplatz
Köpenicker Straße 133 – 138, 10179 Berlin
https://squ.at/r/d
https://koepi137.net/
https://kopibleibt.noblogs.org/

Wagenplatz in Berlin: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/city/berlin/topic/wagenplatz
Groups in Berlin https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/city/berlin
Events in Berlin https://radar.squat.net/en/events/city/Berlin
Stressfaktor https://stressfaktor.squat.net/

Groups in Germany https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/DE
Events in Germany https://radar.squat.net/en/events/country/DE

Køpi Bleint https://kopibleibt.noblogs.org/post/2022/04/15/we1/

London: “Fuck the bosses:” evictions exceeded by new occupations by Autonomous Shelter Network

The eviction of the winter shelter on Gray’s Inn Road on April 7th and 2 other longer-lasting squats in London have lead to approximately 5 more locations being opened and brought back into use by houseless and precarious persons to provide food, clothes and shelter within our community. The disused buildings were occupied and activated by mixed collectives of former rough sleepers, anarchists from the NFA Queer Punx, Amsterdam-based Anarcha-Feminist Group, and members of Resist Anti-Trespass.

The buildings form part of the Autonomous Shelter Network – a mutual aid, mutual respect association dedicated to direct housing and the provision of food and necessities. It is an affiliation of non-hierarchical, horizontally organised groups that are self-organised by community members without the state, business or charities. The locations and exact number of residences has not been disclosed to protect the residents privacy. The shelters are self-organised by residents who determine set and organisational style amongst themselves, with one shelter’s motto being “fuck the bosses”. There are wet and dry spaces, to address the differences in addiction and recovery that different residents experience. There is also a dedicated queer and trans space support the different needs of FLINTA people. There are even a number of ‘micro-squats’ occupied by a minority of people due to personal preference, and also whether or not you enjoy techno music playing 24 hours a day. All the buildings are long-term empties with no immediate plans for use, and some members of the ASN are engaged in attempts to negotiate with owners to secure license, whilst others have no interest in compromised deals with property owners and landlords.

There is a front office as a place of contact for the public, houseless people and the media being established, but for now all queries and requests can be directed to autonomous_shelters_network [at] protonmail [dot] com.

The residents of the former shelter and a nearby squat on Caledonian Road had many possessions stolen by property owners during the evictions, and therefore many of them are without basics or living in places with minimal furnishings. Please contact Victor on the email above if you are able to provide any of the following:

Van/car hire for delivery pick/up

Food, especially canned goods, dried

Cutlery, cooking equipments

Clothing – especially socks, underwear

Mattresses, bedding, blankets

Lamps/lights

Cleaning equipment

Bicycles, parts, tools

Old laptops, computers, phones

Tools, especially screws

Building materials, wood, metal

The shelters also appreciate volunteers who wish to dedicate time to work alongside residents and collaborate. All the spaces are explicitly anti-authoritarian and encourage a collectivist spirit, and although we strive to understand why people perpetuate abuse, it is not tolerated. If you wish to drop-off any of the above, or indeed meet someone from the network, please contact the person listed above.

FOR AN AUTONOMOUS CITY!

SQUAT THE LOT!

OCCUPY & RESIST!

TRESPASS IS FREEDOM!

Some squats in London https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/city/london/city/london/squated/squat
Groups in London: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/city/london
Events in London: https://radar.squat.net/en/events/city/London

Some squats in UK https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/GB/country/GB/squated/squat
Some Groups in UK: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/GB
Events in UK: https://radar.squat.net/en/events/country/GB

Ann Arbor, USA: Nuthatch update

Yesterday, our tree sitter was nearly killed by an on-site worker. More than ever, we need your support.

STATEMENT FROM NUTHATCH: On Tuesday night at 615 pm, well after normal work hours, a worker drove the tree cutter into the pines towards me and cut down several trees right next to mine. One of the trees he cut fell and hit my platform, barely missing me. I cannot describe to you the fear and terror I felt as the tree came towards me. I screamed and yelled to please, please stop, but I could barely hear myself over the sound of the saw. I could not even see the person inside, only a cold unfeeling machine. He didn’t stop. He kept coming again, again, and again as I begged for my life.

I clung to the tree and my rope, trusting them as I dangled in the sky waiting for my friends to arrive. I called my mom to tell her I loved her. My mind was filled with the names of many other activists who died for their cause. I never thought I might make that list. I am just a goofball who loves birds, plays too many video games, and wants this planet and life to keep existing.
I hope someone with some kind of power to stop this steps in, but I have no faith in that; when my friends showed up after the incident to try to support and protect me, the police arrested all of them. David Chain was a forest defender who in 1998 was killed by a logger who did almost the exact same thing: cut down a nearby tree, which landed on David and killed him. The police threatened to charge his friends and supporters for murder. The logger was never charged.
I implore you to join our fight. The fact that people are willing to kill me and my friends for what we are doing just shows how threatened they feel. There are so many ways to fight beyond sitting in trees. I promise that even in the midst of the fear and chaos, the knowledge that you are defending the forest and fighting for good will give you all the strength you need. Message on Fbook for how to get involved.

Amsterdam: new squat in West

Building occupied and lived in! After being used as anti-squat and afterwards being empty for several months, people are living again in the Douwes Dekkerstraat 18! Cops came by tuesday and will not act for now.
The owner is De Groene Eyck BV, registered on the Ten Katestraat.
Haven’t heard from the owner until now. VPS tried to claim that they had a contract but the police still saw no reason for eviction.

Some squats in the Netherlands: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/NL/squated/squat
Groups (social centers, collectives, squats) in the Netherlands: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/NL
Events in the Netherlands: https://radar.squat.net/en/events/country/NL

Liège, Belgium: La Chartreuse – a new ZAD

On 27 March, upon the threat of the concreting over of the Chartreuse Park in Lièg, local residents and activists occupied the area and built barricades to protect the green space from the Matexi real estate developer. This is quick look back at the first two weeks of the occupation and the previous struggle against the development plans.

The Chartreuse is a green wetland in the heart of Liège. The site is protected because it has an important biodiversity (and also protected buildings). Until the early 1980s, it was occupied by a military barracks, with an old fort and other old buildings.

The site was then abandoned by the state and later put up for sale. In 1998, the city of Liège acquired the wooded area and turned it into a park. In 2003, the fort and its surroundings were put up for sale by the army and then bought by a real estate company that intended to make a profit on reselling the site broken up in three parts.

Two parts were bought by Immo Chartreuse, the third part along the historical street of the Thier de la Chartreuse was purchased by the real estate developer Matexi. It is this company which has been threatening the area for years, with its plan to build several dozen luxury homes.

Everything accelerated when the planning permission was granted to Matexi on 18 March 2022. An appeal to suspend the permit was quickly filed by the association “Un Air de Chartreuse”, composed of local residents who had already been fighting against the real estate project for several years. The appeal was rejected on 1 April by the Council of State.

The Council of State rejected the urgency of the appeal. The appeal for the cancellation of the building permit therefore continues, but may take several months, or even more than a year, to be processed. In the meantime, there is no legal inhibition on the works starting. Owing to the imminent threat of construction, the area is now occupied and defended.

Contrary to what some media sources would have us believe, with the headline that “an ecological war” is brewing in Liège, trying to make the occupiers look like dangerous radicals and to marginalise them, the place remains open. Concerts, events and other activities are organised there to raise awareness of the campaign, and its grounds are used by walkers, local residents and others who support the occupation. Indeed, it is only because the local residents have been fighting against the project so long that it is not developed already.

In 2017, a petition launched by “Un Air de Chartreuse” collected more than 5,000 signatures in support. The construction plan has been revised several times in the face of the mobilisation of local residents who are largely opposed. They do not want to make any concessions and propose to Matexi to exchange the land with an area belonging to the city of Liège, which is not wooded.

The project appears even more crazy when the permit is granted in the middle of a bird-nesting period, when the Chartreuse is a wetland, and therefore essential during floods, serving to capture floods, to retain them, or to slow down runoff … How can we not draw a parallel with the floods of this summer of 2021, when we know that one of the causes is precisely the increasingly concrete development of the territory?

We therefore invite our readers to support the ZAD de la Chartreuse, by going there, bringing material, spreading news …

Translated from https://fr.squat.net/2022/04/12/liege-belgique-la-chartreuse-occupee-une-nouvelle-zad-contre-la-betonisation/

Ann Arbor, USA: Tree-Sit Launched & Evicted

Report from Fight Concord Pines, on recent tree-sit that attempted to block the construction of a luxury housing development which would destroy a section of forest.

On Monday morning, a forest defender calling themselves Nuthatch climbed a pine tree on the site of the Concord Pines development at 660 Earhart Rd in Ann Arbor. They intend to live in the tree indefinitely in order to prevent it and other surrounding trees from removal at the hands of the developer. Supporters occupied the forest floor immediately around the tree to show solidarity with Nuthatch and their distaste for luxury housing construction in the midst of a climate and housing crisis. The sit is part of an ongoing campaign of actions beginning in late March, which together have successfully delayed work for at least 24 hours.

From Nuthatch:

I’m up here because if we could vote our way out of our current climate disaster, we would have done so long ago. While much of this work can feel good– building places and groups where we support and uplift each other, for example– much of it involves facing violence from workers, police, and others. If you don’t read the news, then a quick Google search will show you the kind of police repression that countless other people have faced when fighting systems of power: from Indigenous groups fighting against pipelines across Turtle Island, to Black liberation groups fighting for justice during the George Floyd uprisings, to the four IPCC scientists just a few days ago begging the world to listen as they chained themselves to the door of a Chase Bank. We don’t do this for fun. Certainly, being up here in the canopy and surrounded by the sounds of the forest is a lovely place to be. But please believe me that I wish with all my heart that we could find an easier way besides facing off against police day after day. But we can’t stop. We aren’t just fighting Toll Brothers– we’re fighting the systems that support them, the systems of white supremacy, capitalism, and oppression of all kinds.

Love and rage,
Nuthatch

The Concord Pines development is proposed by the nation’s largest luxury homebuilder, the Toll Brothers. The development would create 57 single-family luxury homes on the wooded site just north of Concordia University. The homes will cost over $600,000.

FIGHT Concord Pines, the group responsible for the work stoppages, opposes the creation of new luxury homes in the midst of Washtenaw County’s affordable housing crisis, and particularly objects to the destruction of hundreds of landmark trees – large, old, and/or historical trees– in order to create these homes.

The land itself was traditionally stewarded by the Wyandot and the Bodéwadmi peoples, many of whom waged immense resistance battles against their forced removal to Kansas and Oklahoma in the 1800s. Despite a record of nearby burial mounds and remains, Toll Brothers have not provided any details on their plans to involve the Bodéwadmi or Wyandot should remains, cultural artifacts, or other significant items be discovered at the site.

This development stands starkly against a background of ongoing local and global crisis. Rising rents and a stagnating wage has caused many workers to be forced to move out of Ann Arbor, often to Ypsilanti where they inadvertently drive up rent prices and displace more people. Those who cannot afford to rent anywhere near where they work are pushed into homelessness, staying at the overcrowded and underfunded Delonis shelter, or camping out of sight.

The proposed Concord Pines development is an example of the kind of low-density, energy-intensive, cost-prohibitive housing that Ann Arbor can literally no longer afford – not if it wants to leave intact ecosystems and communities for future generations’ health and well-being. City Council has proven their commitment to sustainability is as hollow as their pockets are lined.

There is no time left to stop the climate crisis by appealing to weak-willed government officials. Direct action must be taken to stop the destruction of our planet.

IGD notes: The tree-sitter was later violently extracted, but the fight goes on. Follow FIGHT Concord Pines on Fbook.

https://itsgoingdown.org/tree-sit-launched-in-ann-arbor-to-defend-forest-from-luxury-housing-development/

Groningen: Kraaienest court case, solidarity demonstration in Leeuwarden

Tuesday may 31st at 10:00 we will have our court case in Leeuwarden, Netherlands. We want to invite all our friends, fellow squatters, comrades and supporters to a demonstration in front of the court at Zaailand 102. After the court case we are organizing a concert night (punk, techno and more!) for our supporters and friends in Kraaienest. So extra reason for all the Randstad friends to travel to the north!

On january 28 we won our court case that was requested by Stichting Valquest. That was and is an important victory for the squatting movement! They now went into higher appeal, still for a speed eviction.
There is clearly no urgency to evict homeless young people who are trying to create an accessible social space in a gentrifying world. We know squatting is direct action against capitalist property values, and the courts protect those again and again. Is monetary value and real estate more important for them than improving lives in a concrete way? Still, in the Wet Kraken en Leegstand there is an attempt to prevent illegitimate vacancy, which would be the case in the Heerenhuis. Joshua Camera (under his strawman companies) wants to speculate to make even more money, like the logic of capitalism demands. We prefigure a world without exploitation and oppression.

We have achieved a lot in these months: almost every week we have done voku, so dozens of people could have accessible vegan meals. We have hosted meetings by radical riders, anarchist book club, and activist groups. We have hosted Groningen feminist network for an antiracism evening. We have organized movie nights and solidarity benefits. We have opened our door as social centre for people to have drinks, talks, study, use our library and freeshop and just chill without having to consume and adhere to values and norms of the system. For many people Kraaienest is the first squat they have been to in their life. And next to that, this building provided a home to us after being kicked out of the previous house by Patrimonium.
It’s important to celebrate successes! We can always do better and we have not reached the world we want, but every step ahead that pays off gives us motivation to keep going.

It’s amazing to see all the solidarity from Groningen, the whole country and beyond the borders. Squatters are never alone, we are a movement. Whatever they say, squatting will stay! Kraken gaat door!

Het Kraaienest
Spilsluizen 9
9712NR Groningen, Netherlands
rosazolder [at] riseup [dot] net
https://squ.at/r/8n80

Some squats in the Netherlands: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/NL/squated/squat
Groups (social centers, collectives, squats) in the Netherlands: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/NL
Events in the Netherlands: https://radar.squat.net/en/events/country/NL

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