At least 26 anarchist activists cleared by Greek court after being arrested for pro-refugee solidarity action
A Greek court has released 26 anarchists who had disrupted a Sunday Orthodox church service to protest against refugee evictions, a judicial source said.Refugees and activists who live in squats have protested the Greek government’s evictions [File: Orestis Panagiotou/EPA]
The activists ran into the Thessaloniki cathedral on Sunday, scattering leaflets that read “Solidarity with the refugees”, before they were arrested by anti-riot forces.
The entrance to the EL CHEf food collective in Athens’ Exarcheia neighbourhood [Sorin Furcoi/Al Jazeera]
Among those arrested were nine foreigners from Austria, Britain, Germany, Morocco, Spain and Switzerland.
An update on the court case of the 8 friends arrested for squatting an empty homeless shelter in Calais, from Calais Migrant Solidarity.
Today, the trial scheduled to take place at the court in Boulogne-sur-Mer was postponed until Friday, April 1. All 8 had accepted to be tried today, under the comparution immediate(fast track procedure); yesterday 3 friends were released until the trial and 5 kept in detention to ensure that they would come to court.
However, 3 of those in prison, were not able to be transported to appear in person before the court. This was due to lack of organisation of transport from the prison to the court. Due to the delay, the right to be tried today, was not granted to them, even though it was their express wish to do so.
In a video conference call between the prison and court, the 3 expressed their wish to be tried in person and not by video conference. This resulted in their release today, after 4 days of incarceration, until the trial on Friday, April 1.
We call for support and solidarity for those on trial for trying to provide a home to those who have none, in the face of the repression of the state whose responsibility it should be to provide those homes!
Come to support outside of the court in Boulogne-sur-Mer at 14:00 Friday, April 1st.Bring your friends, send messages of support, resist evictions and squat the lot!
The walls of the Greek capital’s Exarcheia neighbourhood are 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.
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.
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.
Welcoming refugees is the first step to freedom and justice by Matt Mellen
The fossil fuel agenda doesn’t just deny the perilous state of the world; it causes it. This wilful obfuscation of responsibility has a human face when politicians and media barons outdo each other to dehumanise the desperate people on our borders.
The mainstream right wing press is awash with racist fear-mongering, reminiscent of the darkest periods of human history.
Refugees are abused daily in the popular press – compared to cockroaches in The Sun, and even the Prime Minister has described vulnerable, displaced people in Calais as “a swarm.”
Adam Curtis’s beautiful, gripping film, Bitter Lake, unravels a story of violence, bloodshed and bitter ironies – Beginning with a fateful meeting between President Roosevelt and King Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia, Curtis delves into a mass of historical archives to shed light on Afghanistan & the west.Continue reading “Refugees WELCOME…No Borders No Nations”
The EU and Spain pay Morocco and other countries to persecute migrants en route and to let them dump unwanted and undocumented migrants there.
migrants in Boukalef carry a dead friend after the illegal evictions
Desperate immigrants from war torn countries that for decades have been ‘debt cows’, milked for abusive debts by the IMF and western banks are terribly persecuted. Just enough are let close to Europe’s borders so they can bargain for more ‘aid’.
All the outrage means nothing unless you are prepared to fight against the borders themselves.
stop watching, start fighting
first part from rabble with thanks.traducción de ‘Google en castellano abajoAnother week, another inexcusable tragedy at the borders. 40 more people flounder to their watery graves, just as a ship was approaching to rescue them.Another figure to add to the 2000-odd refugees who’ve lost their lives in the Mediterranean this year already. The corporate press and Twitterati-spectators deliver their depressingly inevitable, yet sensationally-packaged contribution to the endless ‘debates’ about immigration: “2015 On Pace To Break Record For Migrant Deaths”.
Thirty people on hunger strike in the Aliens Internment Prison in Barcelona reported another version in relation to the death of an Armenian citizen
CIE aliens prison Barcelona
About 30 inmates of the Aliens Internment Prison (CIE ) in Barcelona have begun a hunger strike to denounce the events that occurred the morning of December 3 , which ended with the death of a citizen of Armenian origin. Manukyan Aramis , but his friends and acquaintances called him Alik . He was 32 years old, had a daughter of seven years and had spent 12 days in the internal CIE Zona Franca . He died alone in an isolation cell. Continue reading “30 prisoners hungerstrike over death of Alik in Deportation Prison”
All over the world there exists millions of desperate people in hiding because Nation States misuse migration as a cheap way to get power. Now the movements of the 10 million US clandestine undocumented are getting organised, though almost all politicians are against them. A ‘Freedom Ride‘ called Undocubus is set to roll from Arizona to Democratic Convention.
The “‘Undocubus” is making a national buzz and was featured in an editorial for the New York Times. The move by the ‘freedome riders’ is unprecedented as many of them would not be considered ‘DREAMers’ (although as in most pro-immigrant activism, DREAMers do have involvement). Many of the riders are mid-aged, working class – heroes. Continue reading “No Borders..Freedom of Migration ..unDocuBus”
![Refugees and activists who live in squats have protested the Greek government's evictions [File: Orestis Panagiotou/EPA]](https://i0.wp.com/www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2016/8/1/052e744d5ee046b4bdf2410314df4573_18.jpg "Greece: Refugee solidarity activists cleared by court")
Refugees and activists who live in squats have protested the Greek government’s evictions [File: Orestis Panagiotou/EPA]
![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.files.wordpress.com/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
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.
![The entrance to the EL CHEf food collective in Athens' Exarcheia neighbourhood [Sorin Furcoi/Al Jazeera]](https://thefreeonline.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/ed2371d8a91041bb9d87ed6cb6fd8eea_18.jpg)
The Free 
