Category: Squatting / Free Spaces / Protest Sites

New Social Centre Opens / Frome Squatters’ Network

6.07.2008
The new Social Cen­tre in Frome, a short ways south of Bath, is host­ing it’s first pub­lic event this Thurs­day — the first meet­ing of the Frome Squat­ters’ Net­work!

The Frome Autonomous Zone

6.07.2008
The new Social Cen­tre in Frome, a short ways south of Bath, is host­ing it’s first pub­lic event this Thurs­day — the first meet­ing of the Frome Squat­ters’ Net­work!

The Frome Autonomous Zone
..is a large house on Som­er­set Road, Frome, which aims to become a ful­ly func­tion­ing Social Cen­tre as soon we get our acts togeth­er. We can offer meet­ing and arts spaces and are work­ing on a music room.

The cen­ter is at 36, Som­er­set Road, near the junc­tion with Wey­mouth Road. Just look for the huge ban­ner and the red and black flag flut­ter­ing proud­ly from the roof!

The Frome Squat­ters’ Net­work
…aims to con­nect with squat­ters and every­one inter­est­ed in squat­ting, in order to cre­ate a social, polit­i­cal and prac­ti­cal net­work for the pro­mo­tion of squat­ting in the Frome area. If you’re in the area and look­ing to squat, drop by — there’s plen­ty of emp­ties to go round!

The meet­ing begins at 7pm.

No Cops — No Journos — No Fash

Brighton squatted social centre eviction

88 LONDON ROAD SOCIAL CENTRE EVICTION

88 LONDON ROAD SOCIAL CENTRE EVICTION

At 7am this morn­ing the anar­chist social cen­tre at 88 Lon­don Road, Brighton was forcibly evict­ed, despite resis­tance. The Vic­to­ri­an church had been occu­pied since the Squat­ting Days of Action on the 4th and 5th of April. The space was intialy opened as part of a two day inter­na­tion­al event, com­mit­ted to cre­at­ing autonomous spaces and high­light­ing the impor­tance of squat­ting and glob­al net­work­ing.

Since then, the com­mu­ni­ty at 88 Lon­don Road had suc­ces­sive­ly resist­ed one pri­or evic­tion attempt from police. The space was being used as a social cen­tre for grass­roots move­ments, free cafes, work­shops and a lot of oth­er pos­si­ble projects for the ben­e­fit of the local com­mu­ni­ty.

Two of the occu­p­ing mem­bers of 88 were arrest­ed when they pro­longed the evic­tion by climb­ing to the rafters, clam­ber­ing into a car­go net and hang­ing high above the injus­tice below. The whole evic­tion was over by mid­day and the coun­cil spent the rest of the after­noon board­ing up an amaz­ing space that held so much poten­tial.

we will be back.….…

http://www.myspace.com/88londonroadsquat

Wembley Summer Camp Open: Squat The Land, Smash School Privatisation

Teach­ers, res­i­dents and cam­paign­ers in Wem­b­ley, Brent, North West Lon­don, have re-squat­ted the Wem­b­ley Sports Ground and are call­ing out for peo­ple to join them, squat the land and join the largest protest against

Wembley Tent CityWembley treehouseTeach­ers, res­i­dents and cam­paign­ers in Wem­b­ley, Brent, North West Lon­don, have re-squat­ted the Wem­b­ley Sports Ground and are call­ing out for peo­ple to join them, squat the land and join the largest protest against the pri­vati­sa­tion of the UK edu­ca­tion sys­tem.

Brent local teach­ers, res­i­dents and cam­paign­ers have made a call out for peo­ple to help squat the land at Wem­b­ley Park Sports Ground on Bridge Road, next to Wem­b­ley Park under­ground sta­tion, and join the largest and most promi­nent cam­paign against the accel­er­at­ing pri­vati­sa­tion of the UK edu­ca­tion sys­tem, the brain child of ex-prime min­is­ter Tony Blair.

Peo­ple are asked to join the Tent City Occu­pa­tion or just vis­it, help build net­works, share infor­ma­tion and knowl­edge on non-vio­lent-direct-action, and when the con­struc­tion work­ers arrive, which could be as ear­ly as this week, help in and exe­cute non-vio­lent-direct-action to halt the project.

On 03 June 2008 Brent Town Coun­cil approved the child char­i­ty Ark pro­pos­al to begin the con­struc­tion of the pri­va­tised Wem­b­ley Acad­e­my School.

The meet­ing held by coun­cil heads at Brent Town Hall, descend­ed into farce, as the local com­mu­ni­ty, angry that they were ignored dur­ing all pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions with the coun­cil and Ark, were threat­ened with removal from the plan­ning meet­ing and the Acad­e­my plan­ning appli­ca­tion deci­sion to be made in secret, which would have been an ille­gal move on the part of the coun­cil.

That plan­ning meet­ing approved the tem­po­rary hous­ing of 200 school pupils in huts while the Ark Acad­e­my is built around them over the next two years, putting chil­dren in dan­ger on a con­struc­tion site, cranes over­hang­ing the por­ta­cab­ins and tem­po­rary accom­mo­da­tion, just so the mon­ey flow from UK tax­pay­er to the pri­va­tised school investor, and the prof­it, can start by Sep­tem­ber 2008.

One rea­son the Wem­b­ley Acad­e­my open­ing date was moved for­ward from Sep­tem­ber 2009 to 2008 was because local oppo­si­tion against the Acad­e­my and the pri­vati­sa­tion of UK edu­ca­tion has been so mas­sive in Brent, Ark thought that advanc­ing the school start date would crush the resis­tance.

Con­nec­tions are being made with the Bat­tersea Crane Dis­as­ter Group, the Con­struc­tion Safe­ty Cam­paign and the Pim­li­co school teach­ers who are also fight­ing the pri­vati­sa­tion of their school by ven­ture cap­i­tal­ist, and Tory par­ty fun­der, John Nash and his com­pa­ny Sov­er­eign Cap­i­tal.

Pim­li­co school pupils are already being put at risk, as 1050 chil­dren are being edu­cat­ed while the school is demol­ished around them. Cranes are already over­hang­ing their class rooms and con­struc­tion debris and dust believed to con­tain asbestos is sweep­ing across the play­ground into class­rooms.

But this sit­u­a­tion, autho­rised by local and nation­al gov­ern­ment, will see 200 chil­dren being edu­cat­ed in the mid­dle of a con­struc­tion site. With the cur­rent safe­ty record of UK con­struc­tion sites, it draws seri­ous con­cern for the well­be­ing of the stu­dents.

But anoth­er con­cern is pri­vate invest­ment tak­ing over the UK edu­ca­tion sys­tem, instill­ing their pri­vate, cor­po­rate, and reli­gious indi­vid­ual beliefs in the edu­ca­tion sys­tem.

The Vardy Foun­da­tion, set up by Chris­t­ian fun­da­men­tal­ist Reg Vardy, already has its hands on sev­er­al UK Acad­e­mies and has since erad­i­cat­ed evo­lu­tion from the schools, teach­ing only cre­ation­ism.

The Wem­b­ley Ark Acad­e­my will be run by french/swiss and mul­ti­mil­lion­aire Arki Bus­son — long-term friend of Tony Blair — who is known to hold what can only be described as strict Catholic beliefs.

Ark is set to run 12 UK Acad­e­my schools, six of which will be opened by Sep­tem­ber 2008.

As con­struc­tion work begins and the resis­tance turns to non-vio­lent-direct-action to halt the project, con­struc­tion could begin as ear­ly as this work, pri­vate secu­ri­ty and police are expect­ed to be employed to force evic­tion on the pro­tes­tors.

The teach­ers, res­i­dents and cam­paign­ers of Brent have asked for all to come, squat the land, save the Wem­b­ley Sports Ground and sur­round­ing green space for the local com­mu­ni­ty and wildlife, and halt the fur­ther gen­tri­fi­ca­tion of Wem­b­ley.

Bring your mum, your broth­er, your dog — squat this land, join the protest, make a stand and to say no to the pri­vati­sa­tion of UK edu­ca­tion. Say no to edu­ca­tion for prof­it. Join the Wem­b­ley Park Tent City Occu­pa­tion.

Make a stand. Say no to pri­va­tised edu­ca­tion. Get on the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Under­ground line to Wem­b­ley Park, bring a tent, bring a friend, and make a stand.

All pho­tos cour­tesy of free­lance jour­nal­ist Jason N. Parkin­son
All Stills © Jason N. Parkin­son 2008 All Rights Reserved

Tent City Occu­pa­tion (see here for con­tact details)

http://www.tentcityoccupation.co.uk/

—-

Pre­vi­ous cov­er­age

Anti-Acad­e­my Teach­ers Take To The Trees

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/09/380945.html

Wem­b­ley Teach­ers Say No To Pri­va­tised School­ing

http://jasonnparkinson.blogspot.com/2008/06/wembley-teachers-say-no-to-privatised.html

200 School Pupils In Huts On A Con­struc­tion Site

http://jasonnparkinson.blogspot.com/2008/06/200-school-pupils-in-huts-on.html

Save Our Schools 22-minute film avail­able on Reel News issue 13

http://www.reelnews.co.uk/

Coal Gets Left In The Ground A Bit Longer

Activists occu­py­ing Bodge House / Lodge House / Prospect Farm (all the same place) to obstruct its destruc­tion for open­cast coal extrac­tion had a court vic­to­ry on Mon­day.

Activists occu­py­ing Bodge House / Lodge House / Prospect Farm (all the same place) to obstruct its destruc­tion for open­cast coal extrac­tion had a court vic­to­ry on Mon­day.

Har­worth Estates (Agri­cul­tur­al Land) Lim­it­ed, the new green­wash name for the out­fit for­mer­ly known as Har­worth Min­ing Inter­na­tion­al Lim­it­ed were sent pack­ing by the judge with a flea in their ear. They could­n’t prove they actu­al­ly owned the place or had prop­er­ly end­ed the farmer’s ten­an­cy. If they do the all home­work set by the judge prop­er­ly, they’ll be allowed to try again on 18th July.

Mean­time, the occu­pa­tion goes on.

pre-Climate Camp street medic training — Leeds- 18–20th July 2008

The UK Action Medics are run­ning a 2 1/2 day street medic train­ing in Leeds dur­ing the run-up to Cli­mate Camp. It will be a 20 hour course that will teach you the basics of gen­er­al First Aid, as well as skills to deal with med­ical sit­u­a­tions spe­cif­ic to direct action, such as deal­ing with chem­i­cal weapons and the police.

The UK Action Medics are run­ning a 2 1/2 day street medic train­ing in Leeds dur­ing the run-up to Cli­mate Camp. It will be a 20 hour course that will teach you the basics of gen­er­al First Aid, as well as skills to deal with med­ical sit­u­a­tions spe­cif­ic to direct action, such as deal­ing with chem­i­cal weapons and the police. We will also be offer­ing sec­tions specif­i­cal­ly tai­lored to sit­u­a­tions like­ly to arise at this year’s Cli­mate Camp, such as water safe­ty and pub­lic health. The course will involve sce­nar­ios and hands-on prac­tice and, although we can­not offer you any offi­cial accred­i­ta­tion, the 2 1/2 day train­ing is the min­i­mum stan­dard for mem­ber­ship of the Action Medics, and will equip you for a wide range of sit­u­a­tions, from hypother­mia to baton wounds.

The train­ing will be on the 18th-20th of July, which is Fri­day to Sat­ur­day. There will be 3 or 4 hours on Fri­day evening and two full days on Sat­ur­day and Sun­day. Veg­an food will be pro­vid­ed, as well as accom­mo­da­tion if need­ed — we ask for a dona­tion of £30 to cov­er costs, although this will be less if we can find a venue for free.

The venue is as yet uncon­firmed, but the train­ing will take place in cen­tral Leeds, and we can give you direc­tions from the train/bus sta­tion. It is essen­tial to book a place so we know how many peo­ple are com­ing — please email medics@climatecamp.org.uk to do this, or with any ques­tions.

The Action Medics will be run­ning a medic space at this year’s Cli­mate Camp. Your help would be wel­come – we require that vol­un­teers have either tak­en:

a) our week­end Action Medics train­ing & CPR train­ing
OR
b) First Aid At Work, with expe­ri­ence of sce­nar­ios and CPR train­ing

If you’d like to be involved, please email us at medics@climatecamp.org.uk

www.actionmedics.org.uk

Activists disrupt work at site of opencast coal mine

29.06.2008

Activists yes­ter­day obstruct­ed a steam­roller which was being used to set a tar­mac ramp designed allow heavy plant machin­ery access to the fields where UK Coal intend to extract around 1 mil­lion tonnes of coal.

Once the steam­roller had halt­ed, one activist pro­ceed­ed to d‑lock them­selves to the machine.

29.06.2008

Activists yes­ter­day obstruct­ed a steam­roller which was being used to set a tar­mac ramp designed allow heavy plant machin­ery access to the fields where UK Coal intend to extract around 1 mil­lion tonnes of coal.

Once the steam­roller had halt­ed, one activist pro­ceed­ed to d‑lock them­selves to the machine.
All remained until the police arrived, which was a con­sid­er­able time lat­er. How­ev­er, the spon­ta­neous action clear­ly delayed their work, as the site fore­man spent much time talk­ing to the police etc.

Con­cerned of Smal­l­ey
http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/leaveitintheground/

9th August: Day of Mass Action at the Camp for Climate Action!

JOIN WITH THOUSANDS IN MASS ACTION TO SHUT DOWN KINGSNORTH POWER STATION

CHOOSE YOUR ADVENTURE – LAND, SEA OR AIR

CCA pen-knifeJOIN WITH THOUSANDS IN MASS ACTION TO SHUT DOWN KINGSNORTH POWER STATION

CHOOSE YOUR ADVENTURE – LAND, SEA OR AIR

This sum­mer the Camp for Cli­mate Action will be locat­ed in Kent near Kingsnorth coal-fired pow­er sta­tion, where 10 mil­lion tonnes of car­bon diox­ide are pumped into the atmos­phere every year. On Sat­ur­day August 9th, the camp will cul­mi­nate in a spec­tac­u­lar mass action to shut down the pow­er sta­tion. Why Kingsnorth? While the pow­er sta­tion is sched­uled for demo­li­tion, its own­ers E.ON are plan­ning to build a brand new coal-fired plant in the same place – a ludi­crous response to the cli­mate cri­sis threat­en­ing hun­dreds of mil­lions of lives around the world. The Camp for Cli­mate Action has oth­er ideas. Begin­ning on August 9th, we intend to shut down Kingsnorth – per­ma­nent­ly!

Those at the camp will be joined by thou­sands more from across the UK to con­verge on the pow­er sta­tion via land, sea and air. We are organ­is­ing our­selves into four dif­fer­ent groups, each using dif­fer­ent tac­tics. There’s some­thing for every­one (includ­ing a group acces­si­ble to par­ents and chil­dren).

The ‘Great Rebel Raft Regat­ta’ (GRRR) will be launch­ing an arma­da of rafts of every shape and size. From pirate ships to Viking boats, a mul­ti­tude of dif­fer­ent themed rafts are being con­struct­ed out of recy­cled mate­ri­als and every bit of scrap imag­in­able (mate­ri­als will be avail­able at the camp for you to build your own rebel raft – for more info see www.thegrrr.net). Once on the riv­er, rafts will swarm towards Kingsnorth like a giant shoal of dis­obe­di­ent fish, all with a sin­gle aim – shut down the cli­mate crim­i­nal. Safe­ty is obvi­ous­ly of para­mount impor­tance and full safe­ty brief­in­gs and equip­ment will be pro­vid­ed.

If you’re a land­lub­ber, not to wor­ry, you can join the ‘Orange Pod’, who will be putting on their danc­ing shoes and head­ing straight for the main entrance in a colour­ful, musi­cal spec­ta­cle. And if you’re more of a fan of wild under­growth than end­less eco­nom­ic growth then the ‘Green Guer­ril­las’ will be approach­ing through the sur­round­ing fields and woods, look­ing for weak points in the perime­ter fence – up, under or through.. As for the aer­i­al approach – these plans are strict­ly under wraps, find out more at the camp!

If you can’t make it to the camp, join us just for the day. Trains run from cen­tral Lon­don to a pick up point near Kingsnorth every few min­utes and take less than an hour. If you have more time, come to the camp the night before, or for the full week (August 4th – 10th) where you can take part in over a hun­dred work­shops and expe­ri­ence sus­tain­able liv­ing in action, like 1,500 peo­ple did last year.

Times, trans­porta­tion infor­ma­tion and more details about the groups and their meet­ing points will be avail­able at www.climatecamp.org.uk/massaction

Get involved today! Join our email list to get mass action updates:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/climatecamp

For more infor­ma­tion about the camp, vis­it www.climatecamp.org.uk

Be there on August 9th. Shut­ting down this pow­er sta­tion promis­es to be a defin­ing moment in the glob­al strug­gle against cli­mate change!

Anniversary of the first week at Shipley Bodge (& upcoming protest dates)

It has been a week already since cli­mate chaos activists took occu­pa­tion of a farm house on the site of the UK’s newest open cast site. Here is an update. The pos­ses­sion court case was chucked out of court for the moment — more here. Don’t for­get the 14th July noise demo (link to left).

UK Coal have start­ed some prepara­to­ry works at the Ship­ley open cast site. Many Tonnes of con­crete has been cast to rein­force the pub­lic access road near the squat­ted site. This is allow 200 tonne machines to trav­el back and forth with­out doing dam­age to the pub­lic right of way. (I’ll pause here while you un-flab­ber­gast your­self………)

Bodge graffitti 2Bodge flowers 3It has been a week already since cli­mate chaos activists took occu­pa­tion of a farm house on the site of the UK’s newest open cast site. Here is an update. The pos­ses­sion court case was chucked out of court for the moment — more here. Don’t for­get the 14th July noise demo (link to left).

UK Coal have start­ed some prepara­to­ry works at the Ship­ley open cast site. Many Tonnes of con­crete has been cast to rein­force the pub­lic access road near the squat­ted site. This is allow 200 tonne machines to trav­el back and forth with­out doing dam­age to the pub­lic right of way. (I’ll pause here while you un-flab­ber­gast your­self………)

Mean­while, fur­ther along Bell Lane, tele­com engi­neers were busy with their under­ground cable detec­tors. I don’t know why they couldn’t just phone BT and ask where they put them!

Clear­ly the angry own­er of White­house Farm gate­house (map ref SK41619 44026) is grad­u­al­ly get­ting knack­ered from hav­ing to keep open­ing the gate for vehi­cles on UK Coal busi­ness, as he was hav­ing fan­cy new hinges fit­ted to the gateposts.

The route is still pass­able on foot or horse, which is just as well. We have con­firmed with Der­byshire Coun­ty Coun­cil that the path from Smal­l­ey to the gate at White­house Farm is a des­ig­nat­ed foot­path and from there to Ship­ley Park it is a pub­lic bri­dle­way. The Rights of Way Offi­cers at DCC are very keen to hear of any prob­lems mem­bers of the pub­lic expe­ri­ence when try­ing to exer­cise their right to trav­el freely along this path.

There is no prob­lem with vehi­cle access from the Ship­ley Park end, although the gate may be locked on Sun­days (please con­firm before you trav­el)

Mean­while, back at Ship­ley Bodge…

The new res­i­dents have con­tin­ued to mod­ernise the old farm­house so it now boasts a loft apart­ment, new flags and exte­ri­or décor. The gar­den has not been over­looked with nice new fenc­ing, and sev­er­al tree-hous­es under con­struc­tion.

The pro­test­ers are in good spir­its and well stocked but please keep the sup­plies com­ing. Peo­ple are also need­ed, for an hour, a day or prefer­ably longer.

Please bring water, tim­ber and food etc.

See http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20918 for ini­tial occu­pa­tion report, and con­tact, map, wish list, access to the site, court papers & a protest.
See http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20943 for a report of some­one’s vis­it there.

http://www.leaveitintheground.org.uk

Bodge graffitti 1
Bodge flag
Bodge flowers 1
Bodge flowers 2
Bodge flowers 4

Road resistance round-up from the Midwest US

Indi­ana June 24- Resis­tance to I‑69 has been rapid­ly heat­ing up in the past month. While the first protest camp set up was qui­et­ly evict­ed in ear­ly May, a tree-sit and occu­pa­tion cre­at­ed in the path of a pro­posed onramp lat­er that month last­ed five weeks.

B-rad Camp - against I-69Indi­ana June 24- Resis­tance to I‑69 has been rapid­ly heat­ing up in the past month. While the first protest camp set up was qui­et­ly evict­ed in ear­ly May, a tree-sit and occu­pa­tion cre­at­ed in the path of a pro­posed onramp lat­er that month last­ed five weeks.

Dur­ing that time, par­tic­i­pants also built an elab­o­rate ground camp, while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly car­ry­ing on inten­sive orga­niz­ing with local fam­i­lies threat­ed by the road, cul­mi­nat­ing in a com­mu­ni­ty pic­nic in Oak­land City attend­ed joint­ly by landown­ers and eco-activists. Excit­ing demon­stra­tions and sol­i­dar­i­ty actions hap­pened through­out the month — in Bloom­ing­ton, Louisville, Mary­land, and beyond.

Dubbed B‑Rad Camp (after Brad Will, an Earth First!er and Indy­media jour­nal­ist mur­dered by the Mex­i­can state), the occu­pa­tion was evict­ed last Fri­day, June 20. Five peo­ple were arrest­ed around the camp, with the two treesit­ters being exposed to extreme dan­ger and bru­tal­i­ty by the state climbers. Three addi­tion­al pro­test­ers were arrest­ed at a police check­point on their way to sup­port those fac­ing evic­tion.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty actions were launched almost imme­di­ate­ly, and one per­son was arrest­ed that after­noon at an I‑69 plan­ning office in Bloom­ing­ton. Since then, demos have been called across Indi­ana, at offices belong­ing to the Indi­ana Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion, con­trac­tors, and the Depart­ment of Nat­ur­al Resources, who were respon­si­ble for lend­ing climbers to INDOT. Near­ly 100 peo­ple joined a torch march in Bloom­ing­ton the fol­low­ing night, lead­ing police to scram­ble to pro­tect the down­town plan­ning office while peo­ple chant­ed, drummed and shot off fire­works.

A few chants from this demo and oth­ers: “They wreck dreams — we wreck roads” “I‑69 Shut it down, dri­ve INDOT out of town” “No more roads, no more jails” and “Sol­i­dar­i­ty means attack — against the road we will fight back” and at the end of the torch march “We will win!”

Since then, local orga­niz­ers have worked to put togeth­er legal sup­port for those now fac­ing charges (none extreme­ly seri­ous), while oth­ers have con­tin­ued to act in response to the evic­tion. A mil­i­tant office inva­sion against Bernardin Lochmueller and Asso­ciates (a deeply com­plic­it con­trac­tor) in Evans­ville today end­ed in con­fronta­tions with man­agers and bro­ken win­dows.

This account is only a brief sum­ma­ry of some of the more vis­i­ble actions that have occurred in the past weeks against I‑69. Mean­while, many peo­ple have con­tin­ued with oth­er kinds of excit­ing oppo­si­tion efforts, includ­ing the Road­block Report (avail­able on the web­site), the I‑69 Lis­ten­ing Project (a push to cre­ate more space to dia­logue and share sto­ries across the spec­trum of farm­ers and oth­ers resist­ing), and gar­den­ing with landown­ers along the route, among oth­er exper­i­ments to spread and deep­en the strug­gle.

More details and pic­tures can be found at
www.stopi69.wordpress.com . Pic­tures at http://stopi69.wordpress.com/photos/

BAA’s par­ent com­pa­ny, Fer­rovial, is respon­si­ble for pro­vid­ing much of the fund­ing being used to cur­rent­ly build I‑69, through its pur­chase of the Indi­ana Toll Road.

News from the battles for free space in Copenhagen

Strug­gles around free space and squats con­tin­ue abounds in Copen­hagen, Den­mark. Not only are there still week­ly demos still for the cam­paign to have a new Youth­house (Ung­domshuset) but a new exten­sion to the famous squat­ted Chris­tia­nia has been occu­pied with great suc­cess.

Strug­gles around free space and squats con­tin­ue abounds in Copen­hagen, Den­mark. Not only are there still week­ly demos still for the cam­paign to have a new Youth­house (Ung­domshuset) but a new exten­sion to the famous squat­ted Chris­tia­nia has been occu­pied with great suc­cess. It also looks like the coun­cil has giv­en in to pres­sure from the squat­ters move­ment and agreed a new Youth House for the kids!!

69 WEEKS for UNGDOMSHUSET:
69 weeks. At least 1 demo every week. Thurs­day demo num­ber 69 was obvi­ous­ly sym­bol­ic (It was the street num­ber of the Youth­house) and the demo crew had announced it was going to last 24 hours, going through most parts of Copen­hagen with dif­fer­ent sorts of activ­i­ties planned through­out — four meals dur­ing the 24 hours, open air cin­e­ma, pirate par­ty, block­ing traf­fic, speech­es, con­certs and hap­pen­ings.
Ini­tial­ly there was some scep­tis­cism from both activists and police, but it soon became appar­ent that peo­ple were going to stick it out all 24 hours. The demo moved around Copen­hagen, stop­ping in dif­fer­ent loca­tions to give speech­es or show polit­i­cal films. At many points there were dis­agree­ments with the police fol­low­ing the demo, but the demo always got its way in the end, often stop­ping for long stretch­es in main roads block­ing traf­fic. After 21 hours — on Fri­day around 2 pm — the police had final­ly had enough of the demo act­ing autonomous­ly and con­fined the demo to a square in Vester­bro. This result­ed in a big pub­lic man­i­fes­ta­tion on the square with both bands and DJs com­ing from oth­er parts of the city to play.
After 24 hrs the demo end­ed in a count down and a big greet­ing to the activists and the city which had both been upside down for 24 hrs through sun and rain, light and dark­ness.
PICTURES: http://english.indymedia.dk/publish/show/180

A NEW YOUTH HOUSE COMES SLOWLY INTO BEING:
On Wed June 11th, the last city coun­cil meet­ing before sum­mer, the politi­cians of the coun­cil vot­ed in favor of the agree­ment on a new Ung­domshus in the build­ings of Dortheavej 61. The votes were 38 pro and 13 against. The votes were giv­en after 2 hours of dis­cus­sion. Activists has promised mil­i­tant activ­i­ty in the streets again if this meet­ing was unable to come to a deci­sion on a YES vote for a new place and an address.
The new house will be in what is now a local cul­ture cen­tre under the coun­cil. It will be in two con­nect­ed build­ings, one of which will be split in half. The cul­ture cen­tre will remain in the oth­er half of the build­ing and the city coun­cil has agreed to build a new add on to com­pen­sate for the space lost to the new Ung­domshus.
The first part of the take over (the small­er build­ing com­pris­ing 600 m²) will hap­pen on July 1st. After that the main build­ing will be avail­able for take over on Jan­u­ary 1st next year.
There has been very pos­i­tive con­tact between the left rad­i­cal scene and the lead­ers of the cul­ture cen­tre, who are wel­com­ing the new house.
PICTURE: http://english.indymedia.dk/system/photo/file/111/616161.jpg

CHRISTIANIA EXPANDING!!
The area on Ref­shalevej right next to Chris­tia­nia that was squat­ted on the 31st of May is stil grow­ing and the dif­fer­ent hous­es and con­struc­tions are tak­en shape. Nei­ther the City coun­cil or the state approves of the sit­u­a­tion but can’t fig­ure out who has the author­i­ty to act on the squat since half the road is state prop­er­ty and the oth­er half belongs to the city.
Nei­ther the City coun­cil nor the state approves of the sit­u­a­tion but can’t fig­ure out who has the author­i­ty to act on the squat since half the road is state prop­er­ty and the oth­er half belongs to the city. Appar­ent­ly ‘the con­struc­tors’ on Ref­shalevej for once are ben­e­fit­ing from the bureau­cra­cy, since noth­ing will be done to clear the street until the two admin­is­tra­tions agrees on who’s doing what,
Mean­while small hous­es are being built both on water and on the ground as well as road­blocks to slow down car traf­fic has been estab­lished. Around 28 dif­fer­ent projects are cur­rent­ly under con­struc­tion and ‘the con­struc­tors’ invit­ed more peo­ple to join in!

PICTURES OF NEW SQUATTED REFSHALEEVEJ:
http://english.indymedia.dk/publish/show/175
http://english.indymedia.dk/publish/show/178

BUT EVICTION NOTICE NOW SERVED
The new area squat­ted near Chris­tia­nia — Ref­shalevej — has been giv­en notice. The evic­tion date is not finalised but will be up soon.
For some weeks activists have been build­ing in the new­ly squat­ted ground just out­side Chris­tia­nia called Ref­shalevej. Now the builders have been giv­en notice by the city coun­cil and the state who have joint own­er­ship over the area. An evic­tion is said to be pend­ing although no date has yet been offi­cial­ly giv­en.
The activists have stat­ed that they intend to resist the evic­tion non vio­lent­ly, and that they intend to resquat the area immideaite­ly fol­low­ing the evic­tion.

COMPLETE HISTORY OF THE STRUGGLE FOR UNGDOMSHUSET
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ungdomshuset

EVICTION AND RIOTS CHRONOLOGY + PICTURES/VIDEOS
http://www.emoware.org/ungdomshuset.asp
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/03/363973.html

COMPLETE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANIA:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania