Category: Squatting / Free Spaces / Protest Sites

Common Ground Squatted Community Garden — The Path So Far…

25.05.2007

Last Sat­ur­day, anti-cap­i­tal­ists in Read­ing opened the squat­ted Com­mon Ground Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den to the pub­lic for the first time, and are receiv­ing sup­port from all cor­ners of the com­mu­ni­ty.

25.05.2007

Last Sat­ur­day, anti-cap­i­tal­ists in Read­ing opened the squat­ted Com­mon Ground Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den to the pub­lic for the first time, and are receiv­ing sup­port from all cor­ners of the com­mu­ni­ty.

Six months ago, a few anar­chists squat­ted a for­mer Wom­ens Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre in the Kates­grove area of Read­ing. Hav­ing had their fund­ing cut by Read­ing Bor­ough Coun­cil the Wom­ens Cen­tre team moved out and this build­ing joined its run-down & derelict neigh­bours — all owned by the Coun­cil. Liv­ing and work­ing in the area, we quick­ly dis­cov­ered the total lack of any green space or com­mu­ni­ty space. Look­ing over our wall at the derelict gar­dens next door, with the sto­ries of New Yorks com­mu­ni­ty gar­dens and Zap­atista land occu­pa­tions in mind, we knew just what to do.

For the next three months we worked ridicu­lous­ly hard on our occu­pied land, clear­ing rub­bish, nee­dles and weeds, land­scap­ing our new gar­den, obtain­ing mate­ri­als, paint­ing, plant­i­ng and con­struct­ing deck­ing, bench­es and a chil­drens play area. Much of the gar­den was cre­at­ed using stuff oth­ers were throw­ing away and dona­tions from fam­i­ly, friends and neigh­bours. Unnavoid­able costs (£150 rough­ly) were fund­ed out of week­ly subs (the price of a pint!). And all this through inter­nal con­flicts about deci­sion mak­ing and account­abil­i­ty along the way.

After hang­ing a ban­ner, putting up posters and dis­trib­ut­ing about 600 fly­ers door-to-door adver­tis­ing our open­ing day two days lat­er, the Coun­cil took out an injunc­tion “pre­vent­ing the open­ing day from tak­ing place”. Yeah right! We imme­di­ate­ly dis­trib­uted anoth­er 500 let­ters telling our neigh­bours about this and mak­ing it clear we would go ahead regard­less.

Ear­ly Sat­ur­day morn­ing, pix­ies removed the front fence, open­ing the gar­den up ful­ly. About mid­day, two Pol­ish secu­ri­ty guards turned up to serve the Coun­cil’s injunc­tion. After five min­utes of being ignored they did the sen­si­ble thing and went and sat in their car. Got to be said, they were great and just stayed out of the way all day, so thanks to them! Through the day, many neigh­bours came through the gar­den, break­ing the law to show their sup­port and look­ing amazed at the dif­fer­ence to the area. Rumours are, we even had one local cop show her sup­port on our peti­tion! Over­all we had about 200 peo­ple through the gar­den at var­i­ous times, the same num­ber of sig­na­tures on a peti­tion (sup­port­ing the gar­den and demand­ing com­mu­ni­ty con­trol over the land).

The cel­e­bra­tion in the evening was great! About 100 peo­ple enjoyed a great BBQ and plen­ty of alco­hol late into the evening. The great­est thing was the diver­si­ty; activists and punks along­side neigh­bours aged 8 to 80! And the tunes were fan­tas­tic, again rang­ing from grey-haired coun­try and blue­grass, to grav­el voiced acoustic punkrock. Singing along with my mid­dle-aged neigh­bours to acoustic punks PJ Shep­pard and Gaby’s “Instead of war lets have a beer!” was class, and the blues ver­sion of Mar­ley’s redemp­tion song was­nt bad either!

After the hun­gover tidy up, the gar­den has been vis­it­ed by many more neigh­bours over the last few days, all equal­ly sup­port­ive. The local press have ran great arti­cles about the gar­den, and a few locals have writ­ten let­ters in our favour to the media and the coun­cil. We’ve even been on tel­ly now, as ITN Thames-Val­ley ran a bril­liant piece on their evening news, fea­tur­ing the coun­cil sound­ing a bit sil­ly and our neigh­bours sound­ing great!

One inter­est­ing thing is how wide­ly held is the view that the coun­cil’s mod­el of devel­op­ment — unaf­ford­able flats, roads and shop­ping cen­tres i.e. cap­i­tal­ist devel­op­ment, gen­tri­fi­ca­tion and spec­u­la­tion — is not what local peo­ple want or need. Even some of the peo­ple liv­ing in the posh flats over the road agree with us! A pos­si­bil­i­ty being moot­ed now, is to hold a neigh­bour­hood con­sul­ta­tion and assem­bly to decide the future of the land and build­ings, fight­ing for what­ev­er is agreed. The begin­ings of links with oth­er local strug­gles — such as mobile-home own­ers and allot­ment hold­ers fight­ing a new road, or mar­ket stall hold­ers resist­ing being forced out of the mar­ket by devel­op­ment — are already being seen.

Despite the extend­ed injunc­tion grant­ed today — mak­ing open­ing the site ille­gal — the gar­den will now be kept open every­day, for local res­i­dents and work­ers to enjoy. We also intend to fight evic­tion by any means, through the courts and with direct-action. It seems obvi­ous to us and our neigh­bours that the coun­cil had their chance with this land and did­nt give a damn for five years — now it belongs to nobody, because it belongs to every­body! It is tru­ly ‘Com­mon Ground’.

katesgrovegarden(AT)yahoo.co.uk

Protesters against Bulldozers at Tara (Ireland) — update — more people needed

Since Sun­day, May 20, pro­test­ers are block­ing the use of heavy con­struc­tion machin­ery at ancient archae­o­log­i­cal sites in the Tara-Skryne val­ley in Co. Meath, Ire­land. Con­struc­tion work­ers are try­ing to begin work on the M3 four-lane motor­way, although no pub­lic deci­sion has yet been giv­en by the Min­is­ter for Her­itage Dick Roche to com­mence work. Reports state that the peace­ful pro­test­ers who sat down in front of the machin­ery, were in some cas­es bad­ly man­han­dled by the con­struc­tion work­ers. If the pro­test­ers do not suc­ceed in pre­vent­ing the con­struc­tion work from begin­ning, the archae­o­log­i­cal sites will be quick­ly destroyed and the destruc­tion pre­sent­ed to the pub­lic as a fait accom­pli.

Since Sun­day, May 20, pro­test­ers are block­ing the use of heavy con­struc­tion machin­ery at ancient archae­o­log­i­cal sites in the Tara-Skryne val­ley in Co. Meath, Ire­land. Con­struc­tion work­ers are try­ing to begin work on the M3 four-lane motor­way, although no pub­lic deci­sion has yet been giv­en by the Min­is­ter for Her­itage Dick Roche to com­mence work. Reports state that the peace­ful pro­test­ers who sat down in front of the machin­ery, were in some cas­es bad­ly man­han­dled by the con­struc­tion work­ers. If the pro­test­ers do not suc­ceed in pre­vent­ing the con­struc­tion work from begin­ning, the archae­o­log­i­cal sites will be quick­ly destroyed and the destruc­tion pre­sent­ed to the pub­lic as a fait accom­pli.

The pro­test­ers at the moment are small in num­ber and are made up of the Vig­il Keep­ers, who have been keep­ing watch on Tara for some time, local peo­ple, and gen­er­al mem­bers of the pub­lic.

To put it blunt­ly, if the pro­test­ers do not receive enough on site sup­port, the con­struc­tion com­pa­ny will be able to move the heavy machin­ery in, and in no time at all, Tara, ancient as it is, will be lost!
The pro­test­ers are call­ing for sup­port.

Dr. Muire­ann Ni Bhrol­chain of the Save Tara Cam­paign in Ire­land wrote -
“It is quite amaz­ing how one per­son, two peo­ple at a gate can stop them. This is the pow­er of one, two, three … but we need you all now. If you care about Tara — now is the time to act.”

Pro­tect Tara Cam­paign
protect-tara@gmx.net
http://www.protect-tara.org

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Col­lier­stown under attack 23rd May

The machin­ery was per­suad­ed away today, a young pro­test­er nego­ti­at­ed a deal with the boss — go back to Gar­ret­stown and we will not stop you there thus keep­ing them out of the Val­ley.
But the grave­yard at Col­lier­stown is in immi­nent dan­ger and the two gates on the road, one at Col­lier­stown and the oth­er going to Baron­stown need to be blocked com­plete­ly tomor­row.
They are deter­mined to push through there. The Span­ish engi­neers were defend­ing their actions tonight — they said the NRA told them to work on this par­tic­u­lar sec­tion of the road.
Col­lier­stown — com­ing from Dublin is after Dun­shaugh­lin, Dri­ve on about 4 miles to Ross Cross — the next cross road. Take the right at the cross road and the site is not far down that stretch of road. You also pass the Tara post office on the way.
The grave slabs are thrown about the place — bro­ken.
There are bones lit­tered on the ground.

Please any­one who can get up there asap. Very few up there at present.
Now — for Tara.
Ring 086- 17585557

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Mon­i­tors with video equip­ment are urgen­ty need­ed at M3 protest sites. Today (Thurs­day) there are reports of futher vio­lence against peace­ful pro­test­ers. Any­one who can get to the protests please do.

Loca­tion of pro­test­ers: Approx 5 miles past Dun­shaugh­lan, turn right at first cross­roads (Tara Post office on cor­ner). Straight on and take first right. Down nar­row, windy road and site entrance vis­able.

Dai­ly protests are ongo­ing and a Nation­al Day of Action has been announced for Fri­day 1st June. Bus­es will be depart­ing from Dublin, Cork and Gal­way. Full details to fol­low.
Relat­ed Link: http://savetara.com

Climate Camp To Target Heathrow (& new videos: Another End of the World is Possible)

Last sum­mer, over 600 peo­ple con­verged out­side Drax coal-fired pow­er sta­tion for 10 days of sus­tain­able liv­ing and col­lec­tive edu­ca­tion, cul­mi­nat­ing in a day of mass action against Drax. This year, the Camp for Cli­mate Action will pitch its tents near Heathrow air­port.

climate camp '07 sand posterLast sum­mer, over 600 peo­ple con­verged out­side Drax coal-fired pow­er sta­tion for 10 days of sus­tain­able liv­ing and col­lec­tive edu­ca­tion, cul­mi­nat­ing in a day of mass action against Drax. This year, the Camp for Cli­mate Action will pitch its tents near Heathrow air­port.

There will be a day of mass direct action aim­ing to dis­rupt the activ­i­ties of the air­port and the avi­a­tion indus­try, but in the inter­ests of pub­lic safe­ty there will be no attempt to block­ade run­ways.

Although the loca­tion is dif­fer­ent, the phi­los­o­phy of the camp remains the same: to be a place for the bur­geon­ing net­work of peo­ple tak­ing rad­i­cal action on cli­mate change around the coun­try to come togeth­er for a week of low-impact liv­ing, edu­ca­tion, debate, net­work­ing, strate­gis­ing, cel­e­bra­tion, and direct action. The camp will fea­ture over 100 work­shops cov­er­ing top­ics such as cli­mate change impacts, car­bon off­set­ting, bio­fu­els, peak oil, per­ma­cul­ture, prac­ti­cal renew­ables, cam­paign strat­e­gy, skills for direct action, and much more. Run with­out lead­ers by every­one who comes along, it will be a work­ing eco­log­i­cal vil­lage using renew­able ener­gy, com­post­ing waste and sourc­ing food local­ly.

Avi­a­tion is the fastest grow­ing source of green­house gas emis­sions in the UK, and all our efforts to tack­le cli­mate change in oth­er sec­tors are undone by the mas­sive growth in air trav­el. Hold­ing the camp at Heathrow aims to high­light the luna­cy of the gov­ern­men­t’s air­port expan­sion plans, tar­get indus­try giants prof­i­teer­ing from the cli­mate cri­sis, and raise aware­ness of the need to fly less. The camp will also sup­port local res­i­dents in their long-term strug­gle against the build­ing of a third run­way and the destruc­tion of their com­mu­ni­ties.

It all comes down to us, now. We are the last gen­er­a­tion that can do any­thing about cli­mate change. In 20 or 30 years time, should we not change our ways, we’ll be com­mit­ted to emis­sions increas­es that will see forests burn, soils decay, oceans rise, and mil­lions of peo­ple die. If we don’t get this issue right, so much else is lost too.

We still have time, but not for long. Make it count.

Camp for Cli­mate Action, 14th — 21st August 2007.
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk


To cel­e­brate the announce­ment of the loca­tion for this sum­mer’s CAMP
FOR CLIMATE ACTION — Heathrow Air­port, we present:

ANOTHER END OF THE WORLD IS POSSIBLE
7 Video por­traits of rad­i­cal cli­mate activists

“Apoc­a­lypse is always eas­i­er to imag­ine than the strange and cir­cuitous routes to what actu­al­ly comes next.”
Rebec­ca Sol­nit, Hope in the Dark: The Untold His­to­ry of Peo­ple Pow­er, Can­non­gate 2005.

Anoth­er End of the World is Pos­si­ble is a series of cap­ti­vat­ing video por­traits of peo­ple tak­ing rad­i­cal action against the root caus­es of cli­mate change. Rang­ing from an activist who occu­pied an airport’s
taxi way, to a teacher work­ing with kids on a deprived hous­ing estate, the por­traits demon­strate the won­der­ful diver­si­ty of those who will be tak­ing part in this years Camp for Cli­mate Action in the UK : 14th –21st August. see the all at www.climatecamp.org.uk

The 7 — 5 minute long por­traits are also post­ed on numer­ous video plat­forms includ­ing youtube,archive.org, dai­ly motion,v‑social — Quick­time copies can be down­loaded from http://www.guidedurenard.org/bm/library/7 . If you want a dvd copy con­tact john@labofii.net

Inter­vie­wees are: Cather­ine — Cli­mate Camp; Dun­can Law — Tran­si­tion Town Brix­ton; Pauline — Rite2No; John Stew­art- Air­port Watch, Julie — Grow­ing Com­mu­ni­ties; Leo — Plane Stu­pid; Kevin Smith — Car­bon Trade
Watch.

CRITICAL MASS — friday, London — may be the biggest ever? Plus Bristol & Glasgow call-outs

police have won a high court appeal. it means that ‘organ­is­ers’ of the crit­i­cal mass bike ride have to inform the police ahead of time and nego­ti­ate a fixed route. since there are real­ly no organ­is­ers, the mass will have dif­fi­cul­ty com­ply­ing. it is sim­ply a get-togeth­er of cyclists to go for an unor­gan­ised but syn­chro­nis­tic ride. a large turn-out will com­pli­cate the enforce­ment of this repres­sive deci­sion.

police have won a high court appeal. it means that ‘organ­is­ers’ of the crit­i­cal mass bike ride have to inform the police ahead of time and nego­ti­ate a fixed route. since there are real­ly no organ­is­ers, the mass will have dif­fi­cul­ty com­ply­ing. it is sim­ply a get-togeth­er of cyclists to go for an unor­gan­ised but syn­chro­nis­tic ride. a large turn-out will com­pli­cate the enforce­ment of this repres­sive deci­sion.

back in octo­ber 2005, after the intro­duc­tion of SOCPA (seri­ous organ­ised crime and police act) sec­tion 132, con­trol­ling protest around par­lia­ment, police hand­ed out their leaflets warn­ing the mass may be con­trolled.

in response, around 1500 cyclists took to the streets in novem­ber, bring­ing cen­tral lon­don to a stand­still, and mak­ing it impos­si­ble for the police to enforce their crazy repres­sion.

you don’t have a lot of time to organ­ise, but if you want to build a sim­i­lar event, it’s up to every­one to spread this news far and wide — leaflet, poster and recruit your local cycle shop, write to your local news­pa­per (“local per­son intends to defy police ban by cycling on fri­day”), swamp your mail­ing lists, and so on and so on.

remem­ber, the crit­i­cal mass is not an ‘organ­ised’ event, and so can­not noti­fy the police in advance of its route. since it’s not organ­ised by any one per­son, it means every­one who wants a mass needs to do some­thing this week to make it hap­pen large! no-one will do it for you.

so start act­ing, and think pos­i­tive and huge — if 1500 can come out on a cold novem­ber night over this issue, think how many might turn up on a pleas­ant may evening?

——

“One of the three appeal judges hear­ing today’s case did rule in favour of the cyclists. Lord Jus­tice Wall said a rul­ing that the event fell with­in the Pub­lic Order Act was “poten­tial­ly oppres­sive”. “The police, in my judg­ment, know what the cyclists are going to do. They are going to ride around the Greater Lon­don area. “That is a per­fect­ly law­ful activ­i­ty, and if, for any rea­son, it ceas­es to be so, the police have ample pow­ers to intervene.The judge said it was a valid argu­ment that not only is the Crit­i­cal Mass ral­ly a part of Lon­don life, but that none of the bod­ies respon­si­ble for pub­lic trans­port in Lon­don had ever felt it nec­es­sary to ask the police to con­sid­er using the Pub­lic Order Act against it.”

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Bristol CM headerThis Fri­day — 25th of May — Crit­i­cal Mass

THIS FRIDAY — 25th of May — Crit­i­cal Mass from the Foun­tains @ 5:30pm

Crit­i­cal Mass isn’t BLOCKING traf­fic — We ARE Traf­fic.

Crit­i­cal Mass is a month­ly bicy­cle ride to cel­e­brate cycling and to assert cyclists’ right to the road, hap­pen­ing on the last Fri­day of
every month in hun­dreds of cities and towns around the world. We meet at 5.30pm out­side the Foun­tains near the Water­front to set off by 6pm.

We take a leisure­ly ride through the city of Bris­tol for 30 mins to an hour allow­ing us to make our point and com­mu­ni­cate effec­tive­ly with oth­er road users and author­i­ties.

By get­ting cars to slow down for cyclists we hope to raise aware­ness for:

the ben­e­fits of cycling
the need for more bus­es
the need for more cycle lanes
cut down your dri­ving
car dri­vers need to chill out
cycling is fun and there are lots of like mind­ed peo­ple will­ing to do
some­thing fun to help the envi­ron­ment.

Crit­i­cal Mass isn’t BLOCKING traf­fic — We ARE Traf­fic.

for more info see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Mass_%28bicycle%29
http://www.scorcher.org/cmhistory/howto.html
http://bristolcm.pbwiki.com/

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Glasgow CM May 07 flierBIG BIKE BLESSING — A Mass for Glas­gow Crit­i­cal Mass

Come all, come many …see you there with hol­ly oil.

www.glasgowcriticalmass.org.uk

May 25th, 5:30pm, George Sq, !!Bring your Bike to be Blessed!!

Who do you turn to when you no longer can cycle safe­ly in the city?
The police? The Coun­cil? The Prime Min­is­ter?
No … we need some­thing big­ger. We need the most pow­er­ful force to pro­tect our bikes on our jour­ney through the city on the next Crit­i­cal Mass bike ride. This is why we will be call­ing upon the All Mighty Lord to bless all of our self-pro­pelled vehi­cles. Amen! A Divine Inter­ven­tion will ensure our safe­ty so we will be bless­ing the bikes with our hol­ly waters, chant­i­ng hol­ly hymns from the hol­ly Bike Bible. Hal­lelu­jah! For it is the bikes that have been sent down from the heav­ens to save us and our burn­ing plan­et. Amen!

Come all, bring your chil­dren and your par­ents, join the mer­ry sounds of the Crit­i­cal Mass.

Why?

There is a grow­ing cycling cul­ture in Glas­gow that is not being addressed by the Glas­gow city coun­cil. Although the bike is by far the quick­est, most effi­cient and envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly means of get­ting around in the city, there are hard­ly any bike facil­i­ty, bike lanes are paired up taxis and bus­es and the list goes on.

Although the city coun­cil claims that there are up to “375km of iden­ti­fied cycle route” (www.glasgow.gov.uk/en/Residents/GettingAround/Cycling/) the major­i­ty of them are no longer than a cou­ple of hun­dred meters before they get cut by a road, a build­ing, or a park­ing lot.

Who?

Crit­i­cal Mass, Urban Play­ground, Glas­gow Kiss, The Weird Bike Show, and more

What to expect?

Well you should expect a safe and peace­ful bike ride with oth­er jol­ly cyclists, spon­ta­neous inter­ven­tions and a safe look into expe­ri­enc­ing the city on a self pro­pelled vehi­cle. As well a, a Giant Priest, a sound sys­tem on wheels, some weird bikes, a rick­shaw, and much much more.

The What?

There is also a fan­cy dress par­ty orga­nized by Bed­lam Boudoir and their incred­i­ble cos­tumes. We will have the bicy­cle stamp on the ride which will allow you a spe­cial dis­count for the par­ty lat­er on. Spe­cial points for com­ing as a reli­gious fig­ure to bless bike and dance at par­ty.

www.critical-mass.org
www.urban_discomfort.com
www.the-swarm.co.uk
www.glasgowkiss.org.uk

http://www.glasgowcriticalmass.org.uk

Virgin spoil-sports — TAA exhibition obstructed

19.05.2007
The Tem­po­rary Autonomous Art event tak­ing place in a squat­ted venue once used by Reuters was today obstruct­ed by a pri­vate secu­ri­ty firm appar­entl­ty employed by the Vir­gin Media Group who alleged­ly own the build­ing which has been left emp­ty for sev­er­al years until occu­pied by the TAA ear­li­er in the week.

TAA exhibition London 1TAA exhibition London 219.05.2007
The Tem­po­rary Autonomous Art event tak­ing place in a squat­ted venue once used by Reuters was today obstruct­ed by a pri­vate secu­ri­ty firm appar­entl­ty employed by the Vir­gin Media Group who alleged­ly own the build­ing which has been left emp­ty for sev­er­al years until occu­pied by the TAA ear­li­er in the week.

Today was the last day of the exhi­bi­tion which opened on the 16th May and involves the work of over a dozen artists from around the coun­try. The secu­ri­ty were assault­ing peo­ple attempt­ing to enter the site and the police were called. Over the course of sev­er­al hours the police attempt­ed to fig­ure out where the law stood on hav­ing secu­ri­ty guards obstruct­ing the pub­lic foot­path in order to pre­vent peo­ple from enter­ing a build­ing which was law­ful­ly occu­pied by some­one oth­er than the own­er instruct­ing the secu­ri­ty firm.

While the first police to turn up instruct­ed that it was a civ­il mater until the point of assault or obstruc­tion, the secu­ri­ty con­tin­ued as before as soon as the police left. The sec­ond set of police to arrive took a more prag­mat­ic approach. They said they’d do noth­ing until giv­en advice from high­er up and while they were there the secu­ri­ty were forced to step back from pulling peo­ple off the fences when they climbed over.

Mean­while, inside, kids played on a boun­cy cas­tle in the sun­shine and peo­ple wan­dered around look­ing at the wide vari­ety of art dec­o­rat­ing the large com­mer­cial build­ing. Work­shops were also tak­ing place around the build­ing and there was a sched­ule of films and exper­i­men­tal per­for­mances.

Short­ly before I left, high­er rank­ing police had arrived and were express­ing con­cern that they would be an unli­censed rave tak­ing place in the build­ing that evening as that’s what they were being told by the secu­ri­ty firm. The police asked if they could have a look around but after a peri­od of dis­cus­sion those inside said no.

As I left at around 6pm, the sit­u­a­tion remained that peo­ple want­i­ng to enter the prop­er­ty had to climb over a lad­der tied to the fence and could do so with­out obstruc­tion from either secu­ri­ty or police. It was not clear what would hap­pen next but the exhi­bi­tion is well worth a vis­it.

See also http://www.taaexhibitions.org/ and http://www.randomartists.org/

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update:
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Sat­ur­day 19th May 9pm

Has Lon­don gone anti-arts and cul­ture?
The Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police have today launched a major oper­a­tion, which includes the cor­don­ing of two pub­lic roads and involv­ing the use of a con­sid­er­able num­ber of police offi­cers and vehi­cles. Result­ing in a stand off last­ing over 12 hours so far, (at 8pm), the police oper­a­tion has man­aged to pre­vent any­one enter­ing on the last day of a high­ly suc­cess­ful and inspi­ra­tional art exhi­bi­tion.

Yes, read that again … an Art Exhi­bi­tion …

Launched on Wednes­day the Tem­po­rary Autonomous Art exhi­bi­tion has attract­ed a large num­ber of tal­ent­ed artists from all over Britain and Europe to pro­duce one of the most excit­ing and inno­v­a­tive exhi­bi­tions that Lon­don has seen, achiev­ing almost unan­i­mous acclaim from every­one who has vis­it­ed.

Run­ning for four days from mid­day to mid­night one would have thought that such a qual­i­ty mul­ti­cul­tur­al event would be cel­e­brat­ed by the author­i­ties, but no, they insist that the place is going to turn in to some kind of rave and used it as an excuse to pre­vent the law­ful access to local pub­lic high­ways and the build­ing itself.

The build­ing is full of high qual­i­ty art, pro­duced by ded­i­cat­ed artists and the very con­cept of a rave is enough to hor­ri­fy any­one involved. The very thought of hun­dreds of works of art trashed in an ille­gal rave in incom­pre­hen­si­ble, so the ques­tion must arise as to why?

Has the Met lost it’s sens­es? On a Sat­ur­day night when the under­staffed, over­stretched police force is hav­ing it’s busiest night of the week they are sent out in force to pre­vent an art exhi­bi­tion!

Tem­po­rary Autonomous Art is (was) being held at 15–25 New North Road, Lon­don (Nr Old St) and is appar­ent­ly the most dan­ger­ous event in town

more info 07722044788

Earth First! summer gathering — Wednesday 18th July until Sunday 22nd July 2007 — location & programme announced

What is the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing?

* Are you fed up with bare-faced lies from politi­cians, big busi­ness and the media?
* Have you had enough of a world where cor­po­rate prof­it comes before life and dig­ni­ty?
* Do you want to see an end to mind­less con­sump­tion>
* Then this Gath­er­ing is for you! Read on…

EF! gathering '07 logo (rabbit/fence)What is the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing?

* Are you fed up with bare-faced lies from politi­cians, big busi­ness and the media?
* Have you had enough of a world where cor­po­rate prof­it comes before life and dig­ni­ty?
* Do you want to see an end to mind­less con­sump­tion>
* Then this Gath­er­ing is for you! Read on…

Explor­ing alter­na­tives to the cor­po­rate world of greed, lies & exploita­tion -

The Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing is the place where peo­ple involved in rad­i­cal eco­log­i­cal direct action — or those who want to be involved — get togeth­er for five days of time and space to talk, walk, share skills, learn, play, rant, find out what’s going on, find out what’s next, live out­side, strate­gise, hang out, incite, laugh and con­spire.

The gath­er­ing is also a prac­ti­cal exam­ple of non-hier­ar­chi­cal low-impact liv­ing in action.

We are a diverse com­mu­ni­ty with a wide range of approach­es to our action, so there should be plen­ty to inter­est and inspire every­one whether you have been active for years or are com­plete­ly new to it all.

More info at earthfirstgathering.org.uk

Eviction & Injuction Against Squatted Garden? Reading Resists!

17.05.2007
Com­mon Ground Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den is due to open to the pub­lic for the first time this Sat­ur­day 19th May, with a BBQ, children’s dance exhi­bi­tion and live acoustic music. Through four months of hard vol­un­tary work, some local res­i­dents and activists have cre­at­ed a beau­ti­ful green space from land left as a derelict junk­yard by Read­ing Bor­ough Coun­cil. We’ve cleared rub­bish, secured the area, laid lawn, grown plants and built tables and bench­es. We have recy­cled and re-used and cre­at­ed some­thing pos­i­tive for oth­ers and our­selves. Through­out this time we have been occu­py­ing the for­mer Women’s Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre, left emp­ty after the coun­cil cut their fund­ing.

17.05.2007
Com­mon Ground Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den is due to open to the pub­lic for the first time this Sat­ur­day 19th May, with a BBQ, children’s dance exhi­bi­tion and live acoustic music. Through four months of hard vol­un­tary work, some local res­i­dents and activists have cre­at­ed a beau­ti­ful green space from land left as a derelict junk­yard by Read­ing Bor­ough Coun­cil. We’ve cleared rub­bish, secured the area, laid lawn, grown plants and built tables and bench­es. We have recy­cled and re-used and cre­at­ed some­thing pos­i­tive for oth­ers and our­selves. Through­out this time we have been occu­py­ing the for­mer Women’s Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre, left emp­ty after the coun­cil cut their fund­ing.

Today, we have found out that derelict land and build­ings are not left to rot by the coun­cil through sheer lazi­ness, but that they actu­al­ly pre­fer them this way. A coun­cil offi­cial has informed us this morn­ing that they are apply­ing to the court for our evic­tion and the evic­tion of the new Com­mon Ground Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den. Refus­ing to allow this pos­i­tive com­mu­ni­ty project to flower (excuse the pun!) or allow­ing Kates­grove res­i­dents a chance to decide the future of this area, the coun­cil is seek­ing an injunc­tion to pre­vent the planned open day and cel­e­bra­tion events this Sat­ur­day from tak­ing place.

We intend to car­ry on regard­less. This project is a source of pride for us, and we hope it can be the same thing for all our neigh­bours. We believe it to be a pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tion to the area and we sin­cere­ly hope you will feel the same. With this in mind we would like to extend an invi­ta­tion to all our friends, neigh­bours and those who sup­port us to vis­it the gar­den at any­time from now onwards. We also restate our invi­ta­tion to join in our cel­e­bra­tion of the open­ing day, this Sat­ur­day 19th May.

The entrance to the gar­den is through the alley­way next to the Women’s Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre at the bot­tom of Sil­ver Street, Kates­grove, Read­ing.

Against their injuc­tion and evic­tion is our stub­born deter­mi­na­tion — resist!

Love n Rage,
Com­mon Ground Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den Col­lec­tive
rgacollective(AT)hotmail.co.uk

Christiania under attack and Copenhagen-Update

15.05.2007
The police entered chris­tia­nia yes­ter­day to evict and demol­ish a house, that part­ly burned down a cou­ple of years ago. The evic­tion lead to a night of street fight­ing in the area. Time­line is trans­lat­ed from modkraft.dk

Christiania May 07 house eviction 115.05.2007
The police entered chris­tia­nia yes­ter­day to evict and demol­ish a house, that part­ly burned down a cou­ple of years ago. The evic­tion lead to a night of street fight­ing in the area. Time­line is trans­lat­ed from modkraft.dk

Yes­ter­day’s attack on chris­tia­nia has to be seen in con­nec­tion with the attack on Ung­domshuset the 1st of march which lead to a week of riots all over Copen­hagen. Again the police is now attack­ing a free space in Copen­hagen that has been under attack from both police and gov­ern­ment sev­er­al times the last cou­ple of years

The rea­son was offi­cial­ly that there had been made new con­struc­tions on the house which against the new admin­is­tra­tion “rules” for chris­tia­nia that for­bids any con­struc­tion at all, which also lead to anoth­er major police raid in sep­tem­ber 2006. Unof­fi­cial­ly it is said that the evic­tion might be a test from the police to see the reac­tion to evic­tions on chris­tia­nia, pri­or to the promised evic­tion of all “ille­gal­ly” build hous­es in the area..

From sev­er­al politi­cians and the opin­ion in gen­er­al among left rad­i­cals the offi­cial rea­son for the attack has been critized as being point­less. The house was offi­cial­ly asked to be removed by Chris­tia­nia them­selves back in 2006 and there has­n’t been any rea­son stat­ed why it had to be removed just now a month and a half after Ung­domshuset and a week before the court decides whether or not 3 hous­es on Chris­tia­nia should also be evict­ed.

To many it seems like the police is train­ing for these evic­tions of hous­es that are still in func­tion and also this might be an attempt to shift the pub­lic opin­ion AGAINST Chris­tia­nia by cre­at­ing and pro­vok­ing sev­er­al riots in the area week after week.

How­ev­er, the riots and fight­ing yes­ter­day also shows that the police isn’t always the strongest force. Peo­ple were caught by sur­prise this morn­ing when they attacked Chris­tia­nia but by evening the demon­stra­tors proved to be a much more pre­pared and stronger force than the police seem to have been pre­pared for.

Even though Copen­hagen might have seemed to dis­ap­pear again in the inter­na­tion­al news the city has been the cen­ter for huge polit­i­cal mobi­liza­tions time after time and there has been more and more focus on police bru­tal­i­ty in the dan­ish news.
At the same time sen­tences has been decid­ed by the city court against some of those peo­ple arrest­ed around 1st of march. Most of them have been con­fes­sion tri­als and might there­for not give any hint about future tri­als but in one or two tri­als peo­ple have been sen­tenced for long jail pun­ish­ments even though there was more civ­il wit­ness­es sup­port­ing them than police wit­ness­es against them.

——-
From modkraft.dk:

Kl. 01.51

The police has bloked Prins­essegade (main road to chris­tia­nia) and has parked a big amount of vans and offi­cers on the main square in the area Chris­tian­shavns Torv

The sit­u­a­tion seems unchanged.

Modkraft.dk is end­ing tonights reportage

Kl. 01.39

A police attack has­n’t begun any­way. Four police vans are parked across Prins­essegade with a num­ber of offi­cers in gas masks in front of and behind the vans.

Fur­ther up the street clos­er to Chris­tia­nia molo­tov cock­tails and tear­gas granats are thrown in each oth­ers direc­tion but with­out any real move­ment.

The police has all equip­ment ready but noth­ing is hap­pen­ing

Kl. 01.28

A wit­ness reports that the police has tak­en on gas­masks and is stand­ing next to their vans by the church half way between the square Chris­tian­shavns Torv and the entrance to Chris­tia­nia

The wit­ness thinks it looks like the prepa­ra­tion for a final attack on the demon­stra­tors.

Kl. 01.24

There has just been new clash­es between demon­stra­tors and police around Prins­essegade and Båd­mandsstræde.

The police moved for­ward in vans and had rocks thrown after them. The police then retreat­ed and fired tear­gas at the demon­stra­tors.

In return the demon­stra­tors threw at least 3 molo­tov­cock­tails at the police

It seems as if the clash­es does­n’t lead to any changes in posi­tion. The police has again retreat­ed.

Kl. 01.05

The fight­ing between demon­stra­tors and police seems to stop just as slow­ly. There aren’t as many demon­stra­tors on the street as ear­li­er in the evening.

There is still a lot of clash­es with the police where paint­bombs and molo­tovs are thrown at the police

A wit­ness has esti­mat­ed the num­ber of demon­stra­tors to be around 100 but there is more inside chris­tia­nia.

Kl. 00.55

After demon­stra­tors have been retreat­ed to chris­tia­nia they have now start­ed run­ning out in dif­fer­ent loca­tions in the area. There is fight­ing in a street next to Prins­essegade. The police is slow­ly retreat­ing.

There are still huge amounts of gas in the streets but the wind keeps spread­ing it out.

Kl. 00.41

There is still fight­ing between police and demon­stra­tors in Prins­essegade. Also there is still a lot of gas in the streets but the demon­stra­tors are just mov­ing accord­ing to the amount of gas, retreat­ing when there is too much. Molo­tovs are fre­quent­ly being thrown at the police

The demon­stra­tors are pour­ing water on the tear­gas bul­lets (?), mov­ing from one to anoth­er with water bot­tles.

The area is cov­ered with a huge police­force.

Kl. 00.24

The police has fired extreme­ly much tear­gas in the streets. A wit­ness says taht the demon­stra­tors are cry­ing and vom­it­ting. But peo­ple still havent giv­en up but are instead very aggres­sive. A lot is retreat­ing from the gas but sev­er­al demon­stra­tors are stay­ing.

Water and lemons are hand­ed out among the demon­stra­tors.

The wind in the area is con­tin­u­ing and the demon­stra­tors are moing towards the police as soon as the gas is gone.

Tear­gas has just been fired into chris­tia­nia over the musik­place Lop­pen (www.loppen.dk)

Kl. 00.18

There are burn­ing bar­ri­cades sev­er­al places in the area. In a par­al­lel street to Prins­essegade a larg­er bar­ri­cade is on fire

Kl. 00.13

Every­thing is qui­et on Sankt Hans Torv where a demon­stra­tion was sup­pose to start at mid­night. 15–20 demon­stra­tors are hang­ing out there and there isn’t any sign of dis­tur­bance.

Kl. 00.11

A clash is being pre­pared in Prins­essegade. The police has fired huge amounts of gas in the street but a wind is spread­ing it out. That makes the demon­stra­tors move for­ward as soon as the worst amount of gas is gone

The police seems to be hes­i­tat­ing, accord­ing to a source

Kl. 23.59

The police moved towards the demon­stra­tors a moment ago. They were met with rocks and the like.

One van was set on fire which is out again by now

A minute after the attack the police retreat­ed again and regrouped.
They fired gas at the demon­stra­tors

The demon­stra­tors have retreat­ed a bit but are very dis­ci­plined. They are yelling “Hold the line” to each oth­er. A wit­ness calls them “ready for bat­tle”

Kl. 23.55

The sit­u­a­tion is tense. Bar­ri­cades are build in Prins­essegade

By Båd­mandsstræde a small­er clash is hap­pen­ing. Oppo­site ear­li­er the police is hes­i­tat­ing a bit. At oth­er attacks the police has answered to demon­stra­tors’ attacks with pow­er­ful attack on them.

It is the demon­stra­tors that are offen­sive now.. They are yelling out paroles against police bru­tal­i­ty

The house the police evict­ed this morn­ing has been rebuild.

Kl. 23.47

SMS-mes­sages has called for a demon­stra­tion at Nør­re­bro at mid­night. As the demon­stra­tions on chris­tia­nia and in the area ear­li­er it is to protest the evic­tion of a house on chris­tia­nia ear­li­er today

Kl. 23. 42

There are two large burn­ing bar­ri­cades in Prins­essegade. One of them was attacked by a police 15 min­utes ago.

A new fire is being made between the two bar­ri­cades. The mood is tense & bat­tle-pre­pared.

The area has been blocked by police. No one can enter or leave the neigh­bour­hood. Even the metro has been stopped.

Wit­ness­es describe the sit­u­a­tion as silence before the storm

Kl. 23.33

Police has just start­ed a mas­sive and vio­lent attack on the entrance to Chris­tia­nia. This is after demon­stra­tors again has made attacks on the police. A sin­gle demon­stra­tor did­n’t make it away and has been arrest­ed and car­ried away

Kl. 23.23:

The police attacked the entrance to chris­tia­nia five min­utes ago. The demon­stra­tors replied with molo­tovs, rocks and bot­tles.

The police has retreat­ed again and a new attack is expect­ed.

There are sev­er­al burn­ing bar­ri­cades in the area

The riots start­ed short­ly after 22 o’clock where a demon­stra­tion on the main square in the area start­ed by sms’s start­ed a larg­er fire and build bar­ri­cades. The police attacked the demon­stra­tion after about 10 min­utes and at least 25 peo­ple were arrest­ed.

The demon­stra­tors spread out in the area after­wards and start­ed build­ing burn­ing bar­ri­cades around the entrances to chris­tia­nia.

Politiken.dk writes that at least 42 per­sons had been arrest­ed at 22.30

——-
Pic­tures & video: http://indymedia.dk/article/1153
http://politiken.dk/poltv/?ExtID=1646
http://politiken.dk/poltv/?ExtID=1646

More video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImOBGgLEBHI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpse1ohja4g
playlist:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=D96F3A4AD2D6B746

Squatted Community Garden Opening Day — Sat 19th May — Reading!

“COMMON GROUND”
(Read­ing Squat­ted Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den)
** OPENING DAY! **

SATURDAY MAY 19TH,
1pm till Late!
** BBQ, live acoustic music and dance exhi­bi­tion by local kids from 6pm! **

“COMMON GROUND”
(Read­ing Squat­ted Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den)
** OPENING DAY! **

SATURDAY MAY 19TH,
1pm till Late!
** BBQ, live acoustic music and dance exhi­bi­tion by local kids from 6pm! **

A group of anti-cap­i­tal­ists in Read­ing have cre­at­ed a beau­ti­ful gar­den from a squat­ted piece of derelict land for our com­mu­ni­ty to use and enjoy. On Sat­ur­day 19th May we will be open­ing to the pub­lic for the first time, hope to see you there!

Lim­it­ed acco­mo­da­tion is avail­able, 1st come 1st serve — please let us know asap, thanx!

The entrance is through the alley­way, next to the Wom­ens Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre, Sil­ver Street, Cen­tral Read­ing, UK. We are 10mins walk from train sta­tion.

“Any­thing is pos­si­ble when we take the ini­tia­tive”

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion please email rgacollective(AT)hotmail.co.uk

Gloucester pipeline action group

May 6, 2007
There has been an action group formed in Glouces­ter to raise aware­ness about the pipeline and to protest against the pipeline. We meet up around once month and also stage direct actions, put on ben­e­fit gigs and have info stalls in Glouces­ter and at local events. Please send an email to fightthepipe@hotmail.co.uk for more infor­ma­tion or con­tact us through our myspace http://www.myspace.com/fightingthepipe

May 6, 2007
There has been an action group formed in Glouces­ter to raise aware­ness about the pipeline and to protest against the pipeline. We meet up around once month and also stage direct actions, put on ben­e­fit gigs and have info stalls in Glouces­ter and at local events. Please send an email to fightthepipe@hotmail.co.uk for more infor­ma­tion or con­tact us through our myspace http://www.myspace.com/fightingthepipe

We would love to hear from any­one whether you just want email updates on what we are doing, put up a few posters and give leaflets to friends or get involved with direct actions.

Togeth­er we can make a dif­fer­ence!