Continue reading “submedia.tv…. SINK THE RICH.. and Share the Loot!”
ln this episode of UpFront, Mehdi Hasan speaks to the renowned American academic Noam Chomsky about his public spat with the Turkish president, the war against ISIL and Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Continue reading “Noam Chomsky on War against ISIL… most viewed post”
The walls of the Greek capital’s Exarcheia neighbourhood are ![The anarchist food collective EL CHEf uses the image of the infamous Che Guevara as a symbol of their project [Sorin Furcoi/Al Jazeera]](https://thefreeonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/415a34a5555d4db38b0c10a4af8d4d37_18.jpg?w=257&h=144)
cloaked in political graffiti, with slogans denouncing authority and others pledging solidarity with new arrivals as the refugee crisis continues to shake
Europe.Established by seven activists in 2008, the collective is run on a volunteer basis and feeds hundreds of people each month. Originally created for hungry and homeless locals, EL CHEf changed its focus to refugees as the crisis grew this year. EL CHEf is staunchly ideological. As anarchists, 
the volunteers reject funding from either the government or humanitarian organisations. “Empty places should always be used as housing for people without it, or as social centres, or serve a good for people who need them,” Stathis adds.Even the decision to choose this neighbourhood was born from deeply held political convictions.
A few hundred metres away on the corner, the Notara refugee solidarity centre provides temporary housing to refugees stopping over in Athens
Refugees at home with Greek anarchists
Manan, 30, who gave only his first name as he has family back in Afghanistan, fled home in early 2014 as fighting raged and the Taliban made gains in many parts of the country. He was stuck in Iran for several months waiting for a smuggler to organise his trip, then Turkey for a year while he worked and saved money to continue the journey.
Arriving in Greece more than a year ago, Manan says that the warm welcome he found among solidarity activists in places such as Exarcheia prompted him to change his mind and not go on to other European countries, as he originally intended.
In Exarcheia, a graffiti-daubed neighbourhood which the locals have dubbed an independent republic within the Greek capital, anarchists are squatting in the former tax administration building.
They call the place “Notara”. It lies on Notara Street and has now become a home for some of the refugees in the city. Many are Iranian, others from Algeria or Morocco. Some Syrian and Afghan refugees who have problems with their documents or are awaiting money from home have also found shelter here.
A huge banner reading “Refugees Welcome Home” is draped across the front of a derelict building in Exarchia, Athens – a district that’s generally regarded as the spiritual home to the city’s anarchist movement. On Tuesday morning, members of the Anti-authoritarian Movement Athens (AK) occupied a former university dining hall, with the aim of transforming it into a temporary residence for refugees.
As Anarchist Radio Berlin we publish an audio by the self-organized refugee squat Orfanotrofeio in Thessaloniki.
![The entrance to the EL CHEf food collective in Athens' Exarcheia neighbourhood [Sorin Furcoi/Al Jazeera]](https://thefreeonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/ed2371d8a91041bb9d87ed6cb6fd8eea_18.jpg)
The entrance to the EL CHEf food collective in Athens’ Exarcheia neighbourhood [Sorin Furcoi/Al Jazeera
From Squat.net
In the evening of Sunday, January 10th 2016, we occupied the empty building on Themistokleous St. 58, in Exarchia, Athens. The intention is to open up a place where migrants who are blocked here in Greece, because of the European migration policies, can live and self-organize free from state control. We are a group of individuals from different places and of different contexts, connected through the fight against States, nations, borders, lager, prisons, capitalism; eventually against every part of this rotten system of domination that oppresses us. We are open to anyone who agrees with our basic principles and wants to participate in the project without a hidden political agenda.
This squat isn’t meant to be a public service. We aren’t “volunteers” and we don’t see migrants as victims. One of the challenges of this project will be to overcome in practice the separation imposed on us by borders and citizenship. This house seeks to become a place where people organize themselves and learn from one another mutually, regardless of their origins.
This is an act against the system and the migration policies. It is not our intention to assist the humanitarian aid provided by the State. The integrated and/or assimilated, non-critical humanitarian aid is in fact helping the State to focus on repressive measures in order to persecute and control migration. We strongly refuse to cooperate not only with the State and political parties, but also with NGOs and other organizations or formations that do so (officially or unofficially). All of these scumbags take advantage of the situation of migrants either to profit, protect their interests, gain political power, or to build a social profile.
The control of migration is a tool in the hands of those in power. Right now the Greek State uses the situation of migrants stranded here to put pressure during negotiations for better conditions enabling the implementation of the third memorandum. At the same time, European States regulate migrant flows according their need for cheap labor force, and the rest of migrants are murdered (in land and maritime borders and the streets of European cities), incarcerated or deported. The European Union upgrades its repressive border policies and negotiates deals with States at the inner and outer European borders to continue and intensify the war against migration by more effective means. Those in power hope to secure their property and privileges from those who are being exploited by the capitalist system and suffer their wars. Private and public corporations try to make as much profit of this situation as possible. NGOs represent the interests of their employers, mainly the State, and are well paid for their job.
Because of property rights, people are sleeping in the streets while thousands of houses remain empty. There are enough goods for everyone. We just have to take what we need ourselves.
We declare our solidarity and support to all forms of action that attack borders, nations, prisons, the critical infrastructure that reproduce the existent, and all those who directly or indirectly defend the status quo!
No racism
No sexism
No homophobia
No discrimination
No exploitation
No oppression
No hierarchy
No authority
No patriotism
NOT welcome are:
Journalists/media
Politicians
Cops
All organizations that cooperate with the State
We welcome people willing to self-organize, regardless if they have papers or not, and regardless if they have a refugee status or not. Priority in housing is given to those who have no chance to stay somewhere else.
We call people in solidarity to support the squat outside of the building. Soon enough we will announce the date and time for the administrative assembly of the project.
Translation in Greek, German
Contra Info https://en-contrainfo.espiv.net/2016/01/10/athens-new-squat-in-themistokleous-st-58-in-exarchia/
Athens: Update from Themistokleous 58 squat in Exarchia
At about 10pm on January 10th 2016, a few hours after we occupied the empty building on Themistokleous 58 St. in Exarchia, a guy appeared outside the premises who claimed to represent ‘ANASKEVI M EPE’ and said that the building belongs to this real estate company.
What he pretty much told us is that, if we don’t evict ourselves from the building until tomorrow, he will call the cops.
We make clear that we do not acknowledge private property, and we have no intention of leaving the squat.
We call for continued presence of people in solidarity, inside and outside the building, to defend the project by all available means.
Themistokleous 58 squat
Translation in Greek
https://en-contrainfo.espiv.net/2016/01/10/athens-update-from-themistokleous-58-squat-in-exarchia/
The full length documentary, UNGOVERNABLES tries to approach the present reality of the anarchist or anti-authoritarian movement in Catalonia. It deals with the social unrest of recent years: general strikes, blockade of “parlament”, the indignant movement, self-organization processes in neighborhoods and workplaces, the revolt of Can Vies. As well as the vision of the ruling classes and the media of what they themselves have called the “anti”.
The State’s response to the struggle has focused on repression and criminal hardening as demonstrated by the adoption of the “gag law” or the application of the antiterrorism law to anarchism in different cases and in the operation called “Pandora”. Continue reading “Docu: Ingobernables: Trip round anarchist Catalonia (in Spanish/Catalan)”
Police have found a new way to legally incorporate surveillance and profiling into everyday life. Just when you thought we were making progress raising awareness surrounding police brutality, we have something new to contend with. The Police Threat Score isn’t calculated by a racist police officer or a barrel-rolling cop who thinks he’s on a TV drama; it’s a computer algorithm that steals your data and calculates your likelihood of risk and threat for the fuzz. Continue reading “US cops start to get your ‘Threat Score’ data”
This comic was produced in partnership by Years of Living Dangerously and Symbolia Magazine. For more amazing real life comics, see Symbolia on an iPad or via PDF. And for more information on the biggest story of our time – check out YEARS….reproduced here with thanks! Continue reading “cartoon : Climate Chaos in Syrian Apocalypse”
Daily massacres are taking place in Eastern Turkey (North Kurdistan) as the Turkish police and half million strong army indulge in pogroms against the Kurdish population, who demand autonomous self-rule (but not a new state).
Led by an openly racist and neo-fascist megalomaniac, Erdogan, the Turkish State broke negotiations, renounced the cease-fire and began ever growing police and military campaigns in east Turkey and North Iraq (but not yet invading Rojava).
The pogroms and incipient genocide were given the ‘OKAY’ by Nato (the US) in the Incirlik agreement, meaning that Western reporting is at a minimum, and Erdogan now has implicit EU support (plus billions of euros) in return for curbing the refugee flow to Europe.
A total of 19 bullets have been found in the bodies of three women who were killed on Jan. 4 in the southeastern district of Silopi as Şırnak Governor’s Office denied media claims that the victims were assassinated.
Seve Demir, a member of the Democratic Regions Party (DBP), Fatma Uyar and Pakize Nayır, as well as an unidentified man, were found dead in Silopi, which has been under a government siege since Dec. 14, 2015, as the government pursues military operations against all Kurdish resistance. Continue reading “Turkish State pogroms on Kurds and Left approach Genocide”
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