Hackney Social Centre Under Threat of Eviction!

The Hack­ney Social Cen­tre (231 Low­er Clap­ton Road, Hack­ney) is now wait­ing for High Court Bailiffs, sched­uled to arrive at the prop­er­ty at 9:00 AM this Mon­day, April 21, 2008. Any­one able to stand with us to meet the bailiffs and defend the space is asked to gath­er out­side the Social Cen­tre at 8:00 AM on Mon­day Morn­ing.

In March, Howun Estates — the prop­er­ty devel­op­ers who had left the build­ing emp­ty after buy­ing it in 2007 as a pre-Olympic Games “invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ty” — was award­ed an Order of Pos­ses­sion by Judge Man­ners (her real name!) at the Gee Street Coun­ty Court and sub­se­quent­ly secured the War­rant of Poses­sion need­ed to evict the Social Cen­tre.

Coun­ty Court Bailiffs were booked for the social cen­tre’s evic­tion Mon­day 21 April 2008 at 10:20 am. How­ev­er, res­i­dents of the Social Cen­tre were awok­en at 9:30 am this Fri­day morn­ing (18 April 2008) by two alleged rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the courts and two police escorts, who informed the res­i­dents that a High Court evic­tion was now sched­uled for Mon­day at 9:00 am.

It seems as if Howun Estates has moved ahead and esca­lat­ed the evic­tion threat by send­ing the noto­ri­ous­ly aggres­sive High Court bailiffs for the first evic­tion, dra­mat­i­cal­ly ahead of the typ­i­cal sched­ule, which usu­al­ly begins with Coun­ty Court bailiffs. This move fol­lows sev­er­al suc­cess­ful resis­tances to Coun­ty Court evic­tion attempts in Hack­ney last week.

Ear­ly last week both a res­i­den­tial prop­er­ty and anoth­er autonomous space were effec­tive­ly resist­ed, though police pres­ence was high and police intim­i­da­tion ram­pant. At the attempt­ed evic­tion of the res­i­den­tial prop­er­ty, one resister was threat­ened with pep­per spray, and anoth­er was assault­ed by a police offi­cer who threat­ened her and twist­ed her wrist.

The last-minute announce­ment that High Court bailiffs are now sched­uled for the Social Cen­tre’s evic­tion is seen by many Social Cen­tre res­i­dents and sup­port­ers as an aggres­sive, esca­la­tion tac­tic, and a response to last week’s suc­cess­ful evic­tion resis­tances.

** Please gath­er in front of the Hack­ney Social Cen­tre (231 Low­er Clap­ton Road, Hack­ney) at 8:00 AM. The aggres­sion of greedy prop­er­ty devel­op­ers and the police who serve and pro­tect them must not be allowed to exist behind closed doors. The resis­tance to this evic­tion must be pub­lic. **

It is a well-known fact that the police read both the Hack­ney Social Cen­tre web­site and Indy­media UK. A police pres­ence is expect­ed at the evic­tion. Come pre­pared.