Newswires: Squatting / Housing | WOMBLES - News, Information for anarchist direct action

Titnore Protester begins hunger strike in response to wrongful arrest

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:38:00 +0000

Eco protester at Titnore woods begins hunger strike in Lewes Prison forcing authorities to re evaluate to bail conditions that leave him homeless.

Open Letter to My Friends Regarding the Pittsburgh Freedom School

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:16:20 +0000

First Published to the NEAN and Northeast-SDS Lists. Open letter to my friends, First, I love you all. The fact that I know I have you to back my ass up has kept me from doing many irrational things Joe Stack-style (with a better communique). The lessons and experiences we have shared have given me the strength to pull through months of homelessness, tragedy, poverty, anger, frustration, and the depths of my existence. A few men from SDS, NEAN, and IWW recently have been voicing concerns about the Pittsburgh Freedom School idea that a few of my dearest organizer friends and I cooked up to bring a bunch of groups and radicals together in Pittsburgh for a weekend of trainings. Contrary to some reactions, the PFS is not the G20. Whatever your opinion is of the PFS idea, although most of them have been positive, I encourage you to contact me personally instead of (or at least before) launching accusations and criticisms of this very dear project of ours. Especially PLEASE don't try to barbecue me and the idea on list servs in front of hundreds of my friends before you've talked to me. That's not fair and I can't tell you how much that hurts. read more

Three Colts Lane Eviction

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 13:14:53 +0000

At 10.30 this morning (16 march 2010) high court bailiffs arrived at the newly opened Rampart building, warrant in hand, and only days after they lost the court case. The residents inside repeatedly asked to be shown the warrant but to no avail. Legal observers outside were threatened with violence, abuse and crowbars, and were told that it was non of their business. The angle grinder came out and the residents were given 10 seconds to open up, which of course they didn't, so the cutting started and the door was soon forced open. The people inside grabbed what they could and where manhandled out of the building. It seems the rampart library is now lost.

Black Cat Kitty Antics: And Stay Out?

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 23:34:00 +0000

The Black Cat occupied radical community social centre of Bath is currently located at the old 'Newark Works' building, Unit 3A, the former Riverside Business Park, Lower Bristol Road, Bath, BA2 3DW, a 5 minute walk from Bath Spa train station. However, their stay at that venue is looking currently threatened, which is a shame, because the building is particularly suited to its current use for community, art, campaigning, residential and performance events.Whilst B&NES Council have decided not to follow up on the Black Cat collective's attempted negotiations with Property Services personnel Malcolm Grainger and Joanne Long, they handed court summons to the BC on Wednesday, who are in court to defend against eviction proceedings on Wednesday the 17th at Bath County Courts at 10am. Highlights from their argument went along the lines that, though the BC people seemed “personable and enthusiastic” their “business proposal” seemed “naive”, and they should be moved out in case they trip over, hurt themselves and sue B&NES. Whilst the Black Cat Collective are surprised to hear they made a business proposal to the council, they are saddened that the council have chosen to go against public opinion and against financial common sense to spend taxpayers' money on court and bailiffs, even though there have been no complaints regarding the community social centre's behaviour, and indeed, the council has no plans for the 2-year vacant building. B&NES instead made the decision to not legitimise the Black Cat's presence in the city, shockingly.And the trouble doesn't just stop there. Bath police attempted at 15:15 on Friday the 12th of March to force entry to the building, kicking at the door and dislodging three bricks of the Grade 2 listed stonework, and claiming that the Black Cat people had broke in that morning – even though Bath police were informed about the occupation back on the 15th of February by 'Rely On' security. Beat manager Adrian “you won't have a community social space round here if I have anything to do with it” Secker, previously indicted by his own words of overstepping his own supposedly non-political remit, turned up and expressed lament that the Black Cat were still on his patch. Perhaps he should change his patch? Nevertheless, the police threatened to return and arrest the one resident, if they could find an excuse.Police also turned up the next morning at the back door the around 10.40am, complaining about another supposed neighbouring break-in. If anyone is unhappy with this turn of events, and can think of anyway to help persuade Bath & North East Somerset Council to change its mind, then they would be delighted to hear from you, via bathsocialcentre [at] googlemail.com, or over the phone on 07956 777609. It's always nice to have company at the Centre anyway, so why not drop round and say “hi”?

Cape Town homeless relocated during World Cup

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 19:07:21 +0000

http://www.playthegame.org/news/detailed/cape-town-homeless-relocated-during-world-cup-4688.html Cape Town homeless relocated during World Cup The City of Cape Town’s latest housing initiative is to relocate street children and homeless people 30 km away from the city centre. Critics call the plan a ‘clean-up operation’ for the World Cup, while the municipal government defends it as a humane programme that happens to coincide with the tournament. Their eyes are deep brown, wide and imploring. Their clothes are ragged and dirty. Their bodies are thin and bony and their feet are bare. On Long Street, the busiest strip in Cape Town, while locals catch a bite to eat during their lunch break or tourists cruise the clubs on a night out, they follow like strays, begging for “50 cents” or “money for food ma’am”. read more

Media: Cape Town homeless relocated during World Cup

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 10:26:15 +0000

he City of Cape Town’s latest housing initiative is to relocate street children and homeless people 30 km away from the city centre. Critics call the plan a ‘clean-up operation’ for the World Cup, while the municipal government defends it as a humane programme that happens to coincide with the tournament. 11 March 2010 The relocation camp [...]

Squatter City: Squatters and the World Cup

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:15:23 +0000

http://squattercity.blogspot.com/2010/03/squatters-and-world-cup.html Squatters and the World Cup South African squatters are suggesting that they will protest during the soccer World Cup to dramatize the lack of affordable housing and horribly deprived and neglected condition of their communities. Understandable. After all, the South African government and various municipalities are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on the Football World Cup, including, the Telegraph notes, $170 million just for security. read more

Chicago: Support the lowercase collective squat! Fight evictions!

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:53:58 +0000

A few weeks ago we posted a call-out asking for support in lieu of our pending eviction. After receiving many questions concerning logistics and the space itself, we have decided to issue the lowercase call-out part II to clear up any confusion. As many of you now know, the state is planning to evict the lowercase [...]

Squatters and the World Cup

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 12:54:00 +0000

South African squatters are suggesting that they will protest during the soccer World Cup to dramatize the lack of affordable housing and horribly deprived and neglected condition of their communities.Understandable. After all, the South African government and various municipalities are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on the Football World Cup, including, the Telegraph notes, $170 million just for security. But what a difference a different newspaper makes. Here's the lede from the coverage in The Star: "Poor and homeless South Africans are threatening to turn the World Cup into a bloodbath by unleashing a wave of riots during the tournament."A bloodbath? Riots?The Star seems to believe that people have no right to point out the horrible inequity of spending millions for the sporting event while spending almost nothing for people's homes and communities.

Media: Community fears World Cup will cause homelessness

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:16:53 +0000

Inter Press Service (IPS) / Monday, 08 March 2010 Cape Town (South Africa) – While South African parliamentarians attended a swanky pre-International Women’s Day celebration at Cape Town’s International Convention Centre, a group of destitute women in decaying Kewtown, just seven miles away, worried about looming homelessness. The women were notified by the municipality that their homes [...]

First conviction for a Mainshill Wood eviction

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:52:25 +0000

Hadda be the conscious opposition to truth. Hadda be contrived and calculated untruth. Hadda be the first trial relating to an eviction at Mainshill Wood. On Wednesday 3rd March 2010 the first trial relating to an eviction at Mainshill was heard at Lanark Sheriff’s court. The eviction was carried out on Monday 26th October by Strathclyde [...]

“City is not a company – Rozbrat stays!”

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:52:41 +0000

On Monday, 8th March, about 50 people from Rozbrat squat Collective made a demonstration in front of the gate of Poznan International Fair Center, where a congress of local councils from all over Poland was taking place. Shouting slogans “City is not a company. Rozbrat stays!”, the anarchists blockaded the gate. Many cars with the [...]

Antiracist-Antifascist rally in Amerikis Square (Athens): February 24 at 6 pm

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 20:55:00 +0000

Antiracist-Antifascist rally in Amerikis Square (Athens): February 24 at 6 pm SOLIDARITY TO THE IMMIGRANTS! There has been an effort by a fascist “citizens group” formed by extreme right wing racists and nazis, with the police in the leading role, to establish a type of Apartheid in the square of Agios Panteleimonas. Now, a new racist experiment is attempted in Plateia Amerikis (Amerikis Square). In this neighbourhood, where locals and immigrants have been living together for years, coexisting in their daily life, in the streets, in schools, in squares and public spaces, racists and the state are trying to artificially create a field of racist brutality and police occupation. In the reality of the financial, social and political crisis, the state and the bosses are launching and attack against the whole of society, intensifying exploitation and oppression. Immigrants and refugees, as the poorest and most excluded part of society, are the ones on whom this attack is focused in the most cruel way: Many are murdered in the borders, imprisoned in concentration camps, tortured in police stations. Living in the country, they are facing the most savage exploitation by the bosses. And they are hostages of the anti-immigration policies of the greek state which divides them into "legal" and "illegal". A perfect example is the new bill on citizenship that is defining which children have rights and which don’t! This way it is justifying the repression and manhunt of refugees and immigrants without papers while it promotes the incorporation of a small number of immigrants under the condition that they submit. In this context, the state has every interest in spreading racism within the society. Through a racist campaign by the media, the state is trying to force “national unity to save the greek economy” and it is targeting immigrants as a “threat to security and stability” in order to cultivate fear, class divisions and social cannibalism, so that in conditions of poverty the oppressed will be turned against each other, against the most oppressed among us, and not against the real enemy: the state and the bosses who are looting our lives. This way the state intensifies police repression to force its anti-social policies, especially after the social revolt of December ’08 where locals, refugees and immigrants met in the barricades, giving only an image of the future the bosses will have to face. The state itself is breeding racist groups through its policies and it is supporting them through its official repression forces. This is what happened in Agios Panteleimonas neighbourhood, where the police covered the locking of the playground, arsons against places of prayer for Muslim immigrants, attacks in which immigrants were beaten and stabbed by racists. These racist groups are presented as “local citizens committees” in order for the state to give the image that police brutality against immigrants is supposedly a “popular demand of society”. And it is also using these groups to attack against people and spaces of social struggle that fight in solidarity and against fascism. In mid December ’09, a fringe of “citizens”, mainly members of LAOS ultra-right party, showed up in Plateia Amerikis asking that the place will be “cleansed and evacuated”. Their gathering ended ingloriously, and Th. Plevris, a fascist member of LAOS in the parliament, left immediately, when dozens of people went to the square and declared that racists and misanthropists are not welcome in the neighbourhood. This effort of a hate committed to be established was also presented in “Eleftherotypia” newspaper, supposedly progressive. In an article published on 31 December ’09, under a heading saying that Plateia Amerikis is “a bomb about to explode”, a fake image of the neighbourhood is presented and the real motives of the racists are obscured by a discourse about cleanness and degradation problems of the area. Ultra-right conservatives and neo-nazis, with the blessings of the police, think that they can turn this multicultural neighbourhood of Athens, where locals and immigrants have a tradition of living together, into a field of intolerance and racist hatred. They think that they will be allowed to assault refugees and spaces of self- organization and social struggle (social centres, housing squats, parks). Never! Like in every neighbourhood, locals and immigrants, we are people who live together everyday, in our workplaces, in schools, in the squares. We share common problems (unemployment, work exploitation, devastating way of life in an urban jail, without sufficient green and free spaces, control and repression). And we will fight together for a world of equality, having solidarity as our weapon and having as only enemy the enemies of freedom for all people. - No racist and no fascist will define which people are allowed to live together in the neighbourhoods, to hang out in the squares and to walk in the streets of the city. - No consent to the racist policies of the state against immigrants. - No tolerance to the fascist – racist gangs. EVERYONE TO THE RALLY IN AMERIKIS SQUARE Wednesday, 24 February at 6 pm Anarchists, Anti-authoritarians, Antiracists, Antifascists from Athens neighborhoods

On the case of Fabrica Yfanet squat

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 20:44:00 +0000

On our blog we published an announcement of the Fabrica Yfanet squat, that fascists attacked their building and also we published photos and iformation about a demonstration that hapenned for that incident.But before some days, there was a claim of rensopnsibility for that attack by somebody with the name ''Autonomus Antiothoritarians''.The posts on that case at our blog are erased.The claim of responsibility on greek language: https://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=1135193

NIGERIA: Oil Spill Displaces 10 Ijaw Communities

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 13:09:43 +0000

CHEVRON'S Abiteye flow station oil spill of over 1,500 barrels of crude has rendered over 10 Ijaw communities and 500 hundred persons homeless in Gbaramatu kingdom in Warri South West local government area of Delta State.