Twelve vanloads of riot police, a crane and a digger destroy dozens of squatted garden plots for a parking lot, with 3 arrests and numerous bruised people after 4 hours of resistance on top of a crane and up in the trees on the site
from thefreeonline on April 21, 2023 by Guillem Martí at La Directa read in Catalan
Three activists have been arrested after an epic day of defense of the space that, for nearly three years, hosted the Horta Alliberada de Sant Cugat del Vallès.
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A hectare of land freed by the neighborhood since June 2020 and which had become a social space, a source of food and meeting place for more than sixty families, many of which “are in a situation of great economic difficulty and share a house between several families, so they spent many hours of the day there, and they fed themselves with what they took from the harvest,” explains Cecília, one of the members of the Horta assembly.
Several activists have suffered injuries and bruises as a result of the viiolence of ARRO agents
Activists, residents and gardeners have organized themselves and planted themselves in front of the gates of the site since the early hours of the morning, in order to prevent the Mossos d’Esquadra from entering.
It has been a very tense day, and the defense has lasted for hours. Several activists have suffered injuries and bruises as a result of the beatings forcefully perpetrated by the officers of the ARRO Metropolitana Nord of the Mossos d’Esquadra.
Other activists have climbed the trees on the agricultural land, with the aim of delaying the eviction as much as possible and forcing the police withdrawal.
A young activist climbed for several hours on the articulated arm of the backhoe digger, just as the operator who commanded it began to destroy the first structures and plantations.
The head of the Mossos d’Esquadra of the Sant Cugat del Vallès police station, seeing that the police operation was getting complicated, asked for the presence of a team from the Fire Brigade of the Generalitat de Catalunya.
The firefighters, however, claiming “conscientious objection” h refused to carry out the orders of the Riot Police and, theywere forced to maneuver the crane truck themselves to bring down the activists, who have been arrested and transferred to police departments.
Since six in the afternoon, a rally has been called at the gates of the police station, from where the three arrested activists were funally released after the declaration process, under the charges of disobedience, resistance and in one of the cases attack on authority.
The people gathered outside made peaceful resistance in front of the Firefighters’ truck, getting them to opt for “conscientious objection”
Just today in Sant Cugat del Vallès, before the events of the vegetable garden, La Palmira, an occupied house and social center at Passeig de Rubí, 34, in Valldoreix, has been evicted, which had been facing an open court date since last Monday . Seeing that this first eviction was being carried out with a large police presence, the activists of the vegetable garden have called to gather in the compound, anticipating that the Mossos would go there right after.
Destruction of a “living space”
“A lot, a lot of sadness, and we don’t even have words to say anymore,” comments Juli, one of the members of the space, excitedly. The Horta Alliberada de Sant Cugat has been for three and a half years a multicultural and multigenerational space of nature, health, network, sovereignty and self-management.
It has hosted celebrations, birthday parties, cultural talks and leisure activities, among many other events. “Many of us come from other countries, and being here in the fields reminded us of our lands and what we left there,” he laments.
It should be noted that two men have been living precariously on the site in a self-built cabin for more than a year, and that they have also been evicted from the space without having any alternative housing
Property of InmoCaixa (CaixaBank), this one-hectare property, before the neighbors moved in, had been abandoned for more than twenty years, disused and in very poor condition.
It is located next to a plant of dangerous chemical products of the company Lubrizol, which currently “does not yet meet the requirements for the reduction of dangerous toxins that they committed to, nor has anything been signed”, reported the councilor of the CUP Marco Simarro, and that “therefore, it is still a non-developable space, nothing can be built there”.
At the end of the day, the entire terrain has been completely reduced to rubble, and different conversations with the property have led us to conclude that the land will be asphalted to build a parking lot.
It should be noted that two men have been living precariously on the site in a self-built cabin for more than a year, and that they have also been evicted from the space without having any alternative housing.
One of the activists climbed a tree and took photos of the police and uploaded them to the networks to call for resistance
“Children came to play there, whole families… Here we formed a community of people from Bolivia, Honduras, Ecuador, Peru, and Catalans and Spanish who made the Horta their peaceful village”, explains Dénia, with tears in her eyes.
“It’s been a job of three and a half years thrown in the trash, and to realize that they want to throw everything on the ground to make a parking lot, an asphalt track, it simply has no name.”
Animals in danger
The community faced eviction with an open date since Monday. It was the third launch, after two failed attempts, one in September 2022 and the other last March 8, Working Women’s Day.
“It was very difficult to follow up on the case, because there was no one involved in the case and the judicial notifications arrived in the form of a paper addressed to the legal form of “ignored occupants” that they left through the gate of the “horta any day,” explains Mariona Bota, a member of the Sant Cugat Tenants’ Union, which has been supporting those affected.
Apart from people, the Horta was also home to rabbits, pigeons, chickens, cats and dogs, some of which have been evacuated in time, but others, like the rabbits, have remained trapped inside the enclosure
Apart from people, the Horta was also home to rabbits, pigeons, chickens, cats and dogs, some of which have been evacuated in time, but others, like the rabbits, have been trapped inside the enclosure once it had been cordoned off by the Mossos Riot Police.
The deputy mayor of the CUP, Lourdes Llorente, and members of various animal associations, such as the PACMA of Sant Cugat, have interceded to mediate with the police the evacuation of these animals, after a moment of uncertainty in that neither the police, nor the property owner, nor the City Council – claiming that it was the property’s task, as it is on private land – wanted to take care of it.
The disused lot is owned by CaixaBank and everything indicates that it will be asphalted to make a parking lot
In turn, the Firefighters for the Republic association has denounced on its Twitter account “the use of firefighting equipment for police and repressive purposes”.
In this regard, it should be remembered that the main firefighters’ unions agreed more than 30 years ago that this body could not participate in any operation to dislodge activists as part of protest actions and that firefighters could resort to conscientious objection, as they did today.
Agroecology/ Horta Liberada/ urban gardens /Mossos d’Esquadra /Sant Cugat del Vallés /Union of Tenants Vallès Occidental
