“All their rules have a grave”
Liebig34 is a self-organized, anarcha-queer-feminist house project in Berlin-Friedrichshain. The house was occupied in 1990 and later legalized. This contract expires in December 2018 and and we are not being given an extension: the owner, Gijora Padovicz, wants to clear the house, renovate it and rent it out again for maximum profit. Padovicz is known in Berlin for systematically buying up, clearing and destroying houses and residential projects.
We cannot and will not allow another house to be taken from us. In times of progressive capitalist exploitation of living spaces, a practice needs to oppose this logic. In times of AfD, CDU/CSU and Pegida such feminist spaces and organization are needed to counter the noticeable shift to the right in society. Places are needed where people with diverse backgrounds and gender identities can live collectively and without cis-men -irrespective of their origin, social class, financial means or residence status. Places where power structures and privileges are reflected upon are needed to make them surmountable. Everyday organization which instead of relying on state structures makes them superfluous and attacks them are needed now more than ever.
We are standing in the way of neighborhood development and will not make room for luxury buildings. We need places of feminist self-organization and political resistance. We will fight for the Liebig34!
Come to the demo on 29.09.2018 at 6pm and show that the Liebig34 concerns us all!
Keep resisting to patriarchy, gentrification, the state and capitalism!
Fight for Liebig34!
Saturday 29.09. | 18:00 Uhr | Wismarplatz Friedrichshain | Berlin |
We express our solidarity with many other projects currently under acute threat. Your fight for freedom and self-determination is our fight! Across Germany, more than 25 projects are in inmminent danger of eviction. These are in Berlin the bar collective Meuterei, das SJZ Drugstore, Potse, Rigaer 94 and more. In addition, the future of the Hambach Forest, the Black Triangle and Rhizomia wagenplatz in Leipzig, the Hasi in Halle, the AZ Köln, the Havanna Acht in Marburg, the Mainusch house in Mainz and (unfortunately) many more is uncertain. More information about these and more projects can be found here:
In addition, the dictator Recep Tayyip Erdogan will visit Berlin on 28 and 29 September. We call upon you to take our protest against him and his fascist policies out on the streets, as well as our protest against the policies of the German Federal Government.
Saturday 29.09. | 12:00 Uhr | Neptunbrunnen | Alexanderplatz | Berlin |
Our mission for the 29th of September (and every other day) is: To chase away Erdoğan and to defend Liebig34!
In 2016 the federal government announced the construction of a new migrant detention center in Laval. This prison, which is anticipated to hold up to 158 undocumented migrants, is intended to be built on Correctional Service of Canada grounds, right beside Leclerc prison, and is slated to open in 2021. While the Liberal government is attempting to spin this project as a more humane way to detain migrants, we call it what it is — a prison, and know that this is simply prettier window dressing on a violent system of imprisonment and deportation, one that keeps people locked in cages while tearing apart families and communities. We want a world without prisons or colonial borders, a world where people, not states, can decide how they can move and where they can stay. Stopping the construction of the Laval Immigration Detention Centre is one step in the struggle to tear down migrant prisons everywhere.
Block new prisons from being built and shut down the old ones!
This site is an information clearinghouse for news, analysis, and materials related to the struggle against the Laval Immigration Detention Centre.
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Cette prison, qui devrait enfermer jusqu’à 158 personnes sans-papiers, devrait être construite sur les terrains du Service correctionnel du Canada, juste à côté de la prison Leclerc, et devrait ouvrir ses portes en 2021. Alors que le gouvernement libéral argumente que cette nouvelle construction serait une façon plus humaine de détenir des migrant-es, nous appelons cela ce que c’est – une prison, en sachant que ceci est simplement une façade plus belle sur un système violent d’emprisonnement et de déportation, qui maintient les gens enfermés dans des cages en déchirant des familles et des communautés. Nous voulons un monde sans prisons et frontières coloniales, un monde où les gens, pas les États, peuvent décider comment ils peuvent se déplacer et où ils peuvent rester. L’arrêt de la construction du centre de détention de l’immigration de Laval est qu’une étape dans la lutte pour détruire les prisons des migrant-es partout dans le monde.
Bloquons la construction de nouvelles prisons et fermons les anciennes!
Ce site est un centre d’information pour partager; nouvelles, analyse et documents liés à la lutte contre le Centre de détention pour les immigrants de Laval.
On September 20, 2018, an informal meeting of the EU heads of state and government will take place in Salzburg (Austria). This meeting is held in the context of the Austrian presidency of the Council of the European Union. The motto of the summit is „A Europe that protects“, and key points on the agenda include so-called „internal security“, the so-called „protection“ of the EU’s external borders, and so-called „cyber security“. We refuse to be deceived by the EU’s excessive use of euphemism. It is crystal-clear that the Salzburg summit will be a summit of authority: a pseudo-democratic spectacle of a bunch of assholes deciding about repressive policies that will boost their position in the struggle for economic and military power – at our expense. „Internal security“ means giving even more weapons of all kinds of those whose job it is to spy on us and arrest us. The „protection of the EU’s external borders“ is the militarized expulsion and deterrence of refugees and migrants. „Cyber security“ means digital control of our data and our actions.
September 20 in Salzburg is just one of the events in the context of the Austrian presidency of the Council of the European Union from 1 July to 31 December 2018. Most of the meetings are scheduled in Vienna, some will take place elsewhere (Innsbruck, Graz, Linz). The summit on September 20 was originally to be held in Vienna, too. Later, it was transferred to Salzburg, following the initiative of the state governor of Salzburg, Wilfried Haslauer. Many thanks to Salzburg’s conservative People’s Party (ÖVP) for the future siege of our city by the forces of repression! We have manners: we will return the favour as we see fit.
„Protection of the EU’s external borders“
Policies of migration will be a key point on the agenda on September 20. In an insidious propagandistic move, people fleeing from war and hardship are portrayed as a security threat. But whose security is meant, and who is supposed to be protected from whom? Calls for an extended Frontex mandate and an increased number of deportations have a clear aim: the militarized expulsion and deterrence of people, who are fleeing from the devastations caused by power blocks such as the EU, who actively engage in the exploitation of the Global South. Politicians are vying with one another for the most absurd plans. To name just one example, Jens Spahn, the Health Minister (sic!) of the German conservative party (CDU) wants to see Frontex forces multiply from the current 1,500 to 100,000 in the future.
„Internal security“
The portrayal of refugees as a security threat serves to legitimize policies of „internal security“, i.e. the increased arming of the state’s institutions for spying and repression. Sadly, governmental and non-governmental racist-nationalist projects have won over the minds of a considerable proportion of the population (not only) in Austria – with the result of people enthusiastically embracing policies that run against their own interests, believing that these measures will „protect“ them. For instance, the new Austrian Face-Veiling-Ban makes surveillance much easier by forcing each and every person on Austrian ground to present their face to the ubiquitous CCTV cameras at any time. This is hardly likely to foster the „peaceful coexistence“ mentioned in the preamble to the new law.
Another European trend is the increased arming and militarization of the police and the extension of their competences. The new Bavarian police law is a particularly scary example: police in the southern German state are supposed to receive secret service competences, „intelligent“ video technology and face recognition are going to be used, postal secrecy will be lifted, and the cops will be equipped with hand grenades.
„Cyber security“
The Austrian conservative chancellor Sebastian „Message Control“ Kurz has announced to take up the „struggle against internet giants such as Google and Facebook“. Of course, digital policies are not driven by the desire to protect the personal data of the EU’s subjects. Neither do they arise from a sincere outrage about the large-scale tax evasion practised by corporations. On the contrary, the driving force of such policies is the competition for technological hegemony among those in power and for the technological means to monitor our thoughts and actions. It has become common knowledge that companies such as Cambridge Analytica are partly responsible for the outcome of the Brexit referendum and Trump’s election to power. The raw material these companies used is the data expropriated from us. Brexit and Trump’s plans to install punitive tariffs are not exactly beneficial to the EU as an economic and geopolitical power bloc, erm, we meant to say: peace project. Now those in power in the EU have recognized the need to secure control over the technological apparatus, in order to remain a competitive force in the run for the most effective manipulation (e.g. look up „nudging“ in your newspeak dictionary). In this context, chancellor Kurz tellingly used the phrase „equality of weapons“.
Welcome to the (in)security zone!
According to press reports of April 2018, the state dinner on September 19 is likely to take place in Mirabell Palace, and the political meeting in the Mozarteum University. Thus, both relevant venues as well as the four hotels where the heads of state and government including their entourage will be staying for the summit will be in close proximity to each other (all in the inner city of Salzburg to the right of the river Salzach). Around these venues, a so-called „security zone“ is going to be installed – for us and fellow rebels it is more likely to be an insecurity zone. In mid-April, local press reported the planned use of drones „as one part of the security concept for the Austrian presidency of the EU council.“ Police drones will be hovering above our heads this autumn, spying on and filming each of our movements. When will they shoot at us?
The militarized siege of our city that is lying ahead seems like a consistent follow-up to local policies. Decades ago, homeless people were removed from the inner city during the posh Salzburg Festival, and a sectoral ban on begging was imposed on large parts of the inner city some years ago in order to get rid of the travelling poor, many of them Romani and Sinti people. These measures are supposed to make sure that the city’s wealthy conservative elite and paying tourists are spared the sight of the poverty caused by capitalism and nationalist-racist policies of expulsion. This is how Salzburg discriminates between wanted and unwanted guests.
We are calling all partisans of freedom and equality to come to Salzburg in mutual solidarity – let’s turn this inhumane paradigma upside down and demonstrate what is really unwanted: the oppression caused by white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, the nationalism feeding on antisemitic conspiracy theories, the positions of power that enable a system of inequality to live on.
We’ll see you on the streets on September 20!
Freedom for all prisoners of the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy!
We are ungovernable! Against state, capital and nation!
‘The ZAD is Everywhere’
The ZAD (Zone À Défendre / Zone to Defend) is countryside territory near Nantes in France, which was squatted by eco-rebels in 2009 to prevent the construction of a now abandoned airport project.
Since April 2018, the French state has launched a new campaign to destroy the autonomous territory using police violence and demolitions, alongside a negotiation process towards the ‘legalization’ of the zone.
After the long awaited victory against the airport project, we are trying to lift ourselves out of the brutal spring, a season marked by two phases of evictions in which the government made sure to avenge the affront that the Zad had represented for so many years.
The massive police operations caused many injuries, the destruction of a part of the living spaces of the zad and a long military presence. But the state was forced to give up going any further and entirely eradicating our presence in this bocage. Resistance on the ground, solidarity elsewhere and the negotiation process resulted in a status quo that maintained of dozens of homes, common spaces and activities on most of the land held by the movement. Nevertheless, what we managed to preserve today could very quickly be attacked again, administratively, politically or militarily. Whilst the zad recovers from its wounds and recomposes itself, the work in the fields and the constructions resumes and we project ourselves towards the struggles of the next months. These however go beyond us and connect with others around the world. They concern the collective and respectful use of the land, the sharing of the commons, the questioning of nation-states and borders, the reappropriation of our habitats, the possibility of producing and exchanging free from the shackles of the market, forms of self-organization on territories in resistance and the right to live there freely …
Following more than two years of regular building work and a new month of construction this summer, this week of August 27 to September 2, will also be the inauguration of the Ambazada, a space intended to welcome rebels and struggles from around the world to the zad of Notre-Dame-des-Landes. To honor and celebrate the opening of the Ambazada the obvious thing to do was to make a call for a new intergalactic week. We hope that it helps to bring back momentum and horizons before the autumn mobilizations at home and abroad.
/// Open encounters between territories in struggle and in search of autonomy
There are questions that have not ceased to inhabit us during this past season on the zad, these include : How throw down the anchor down for the long term without becoming domesticated, being community centred or more porous in our movements, the power struggles and frontal relationship with the state and possibilities for victories to last. We had to find our own partial answers in the emergency, we had to make decisive choices against the tanks and under dramatic pressure. We want to re question these issues and share them with other territories born out of battles and that have traced their own path. Part of the week will be devoted to open encounters with guests from the Wendland in Germany, Christiania in Danemak, the free district of Lentillères in France, Errekaleor in the Basque Country and perhaps Exarchia in Greece. Each of these territories will tell us the way in which they handled these issues, followed by a debate between all of us.
At another scale, there are peoples everywhere resisting cultural assimilation and liberal ideology . A moment during the week of specific meetings on this subject is also under preparation.
/// Historical junctions and revolutionary legacies
We will also propose that during some evenings you time travel across decades of significant struggles in different European countries. Revolutionary Italy in the 1970s, the German autonomous movements of the 1980s or the radical anti-capitalist ecology of the UK in the 1990s, among others, reconfigured our political language, actions and organizational practices. We dive back into these vibrant stories, in search of the legacies and imaginaries that they offer us, in order to think through the present.
/// More content, workshops and simultaneous meetings tackling other fields of struggle
– Various other contents are being programmed, including:
– an afternoon meeting with a Kurdish activist on the women’s liberation movement in Kurdistan, and her role in society and the movement.
– A presentation of the political, social and struggles situation in Mexico following the presidential elections in July and the campaign of indigenous candidate Marichuy.
– Testimonies of undocumented people in Nantes and groups who organize their support in squats and in their administrative procedures. An update on the asylum-immigration law. The feedback from a group that organized the occupation of the University of Nantes this winter with undocumented people and an overview of the current situation.
-The mornings will be devoted to building work on various sites, to strengthen the zad’s commons, as well as to running the logistics of the camp.
– Participants are welcome to offer contributions to the announced discussions. You can contact us to make additional proposals for workshops and discussions. However, we have made the overall choice to favor a few major themes and common moments in which to advance together, rather than to superimpose a multiplicity of parallel discussions.
– We are thinking of organising another gathering in parallel at another site of the zad, with groups of trade unionists and students who will dedicate certain days of the week to take stock of their mobilizations of the past year and look to the future. We envisage cross pollination between those attending this and the intergalactic week .
/// Let us know that your coming and organize it
Tell us if you want to come !! We need to plan the logistics in advance, and therefore to know the number of participants ( we have provided infrastructure for about 300 people during the week). We hope that the participants will stay the entire week to take time for develop a sense of collective. Please let us know by July the 31st, how many of you will be present and on what dates. Canteen facilities will be organized on site, but do not forget to take a tent and a sleeping bag. Also tell us what language you speak to organize the translation.
For all contacts, registrations, questions: [email protected]
The complete program of the intergalactic week will be online soon on: https://zad.nadir.org/ and on www.zadforever.blog
DOWNLOAD A3 colour poster here. intergalactic-eng
French anti-capitalist posters produced following the May 68 Paris uprising.
‘The ZAD or nothing!’
The ZAD is a liberated zone in Notre-Dame-des-Landes France, which was squatted in 2009 to prevent the construction of a now scraped airport project.
On April 9, 2018, the French state launch a massive police operation to evict the zone.
“The ZAD is Everywhere!”
The ZAD is an autonomous zone in north west France which was squatted almost a decade ago to prevent the construction of a now abandoned airport project. On April 9 2018 the French state launched a massive police operation to evict the zone.
Migrants’ detention centres and immigration policies are being frequently debated in this period, especially through a rhetoric based on sensationalism: the picture of innocent and well integrated families, who work in this country and whose children go to school here, is being continuously presented, and it is also being said that to lock them up in detention centres is ignominy. This rhetoric is being used in order to provoke the citizens’ indignation, to shout against racism pretending to be resisters, to launch useless calls for the reform of the management of the deportation machinery, for the improvement of prison conditions and to distinguish the ‘good’ illegal migrants from the ‘bad’ ones.
Let’s say it bluntly: we don’t want to add our tears to this bunch of cry-babies, we are not struggling against the machinery of deportation because of empathy and even less because of piety or to make it more human. We are struggling to destroy it. Similarly, we don’t take it as our point that the people locked up in these centres are victims to be relieved, or that we should help them integrate (or reintegrate) in this society, which we want to completely disintegrate.
It’s been a long time since unionists, humanitarians and reformists have shown their role in the co-management of exploitation, control and imprisonment: of dominion, in other words.
Illegal immigrants, like all the other exploited, have never needed supporters or brave protectors in order to rebel. Many have never waited for the go-ahead of any militant or politician. An outstanding example of this, among many other examples of individual and collective acts, from the simplest ones to the most spectacular ones, is the arson of the biggest prison for illegal immigrants in Europe: the CIE of Vincennes, which was set on fire in June 2008.
A migrants’ detention centre is just one of the clogs of the machinery of deportation, which in turn is just one of the clogs of this world made of barbed wire and dominion. As a matter of fact, it is not a concept to be discussed behind the cosy desks of some university. The machinery of deportation is embodied in a series of concrete responsibilities: humanitarian associations such as CIMADE, France Terre d’Asile, Order of Malta, Forum Réfugiés and the Red Cross, which are involved in the management of detention centres and waiting zones [in harbours, airports and border zones, where the ‘suspects’ are subjected to control, TN] and which receive financial help by the State; RATP, Air France, Carlson Wagon-lit, Royal Air Maroc and SNCF: all of them are involved in deportations and some add their controls to those of the cops; the Accor group, which helps the State with some places of imprisonment in their hotels; the institutions that organize raids and traps, such as Pôle Emploi [a sort of job centre, TN], Sécu [health system, TN]…; the companies that organize logistics inside the prison, such as Sodexo, Avenance, GDF-SUEZ, Veolia, Eurest…; construction companies such as Bouygues, Vinci, Eiffage; the bloodsuckers of job agencies such as Ranstad, Adecco, Manpower; the unions that negotiate the terms of deportation along with the State, such as CGT, CFDT, SUD, UNSA, FO, and all political parties that do their electoral business by exploiting the question of immigration…
All these are collaborators without which the State, its cops, judges and guards wouldn’t be able to manage the machinery of deportation. The reasons for these assholes to be collaborators have nothing to do with racism because money has no colour, and it is because of financial profits going straight to their pockets that they give all their help to this shit system.
To highlight the direct responsibilities of these collaborators does not mean to reduce them to the mere question of deportation and borders. We find all these vultures in the daily management of exploitation, imprisonment, dominion; for we are all cannon fodder for borders, jailers, bosses, humanitarians, no matter whether or not we have documents.
They have names and addresses: each of us can spit some of their responsibilities back at them in the ways we think are more appropriate.
In this social war without truce it is always time to express our hatred without concessions, to attack without mediations everything that makes us slaves.
CIE, documents, prisons, borders, administrators and co-administrators of dominion: let the wind of freedom sweep them all away!
‘All we want for Christmas: Anarchist Communism!’
Burning cop car in Frankfurt, Germany, on the 18th of March 2015, during the massive ‘Blockupy’ protests against the opening of the new European Central Bank HQ.
“It is not the economy that is in crisis, it is the economy that is the crisis;
It is not jobs that are lacking, it is work that is in excess.”