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Kopi Berlin Radical Space to be auctioned off

black frog | 26.04.2007 16:50 | Free Spaces | Repression | Social Struggles | World

KOPI BERLIN CENTRE:
ANOTHER ALTERNATIVE SPACE under attack
Auction of Köpi by order of the court on May 8th

Since the 8th of February 2007 it has been planned that Köpi and the trailer park next to it are to be auctioned off to the highest bidder on Tuesday the 8th of May this year. Yesterday (23.04.07) we at Köpi only found this out by accident. While we were celebrating the 17th birthday of Köpi, investors and speculators already knew that the Köpi and the plot next to it where the trailer park is located are again coming up for sale. The bid for the Köpi is starting at 1.670.000 Euro. The trailer park ground is to be split into 3 parts and sold for a total of 1.815.000.

This is the third attempt at trying to sell the Köpi by auction. The two previous attempts failed. Responsible for the auction is the Commerzbank. They made the application for an auction by order of the court to District Court Mitte-Tiergarten.


Profiteers of Business
At the same time, Ute Peters from the company Franell Consulting GmbH, which is located at Bayerischer Platz 2 in 10779 Berlin, is offering the Köpi for sale. This comes on the company’s own initiative and their pure greed for profit. The appraisal of the Köpi can be seen personally but is, for “safety reasons”, not published. Nevertheless Mrs. Peters got information about the appraisal, which she must have obtained illegally. Her keeping the information about the auction secret was planned from the start. She feared, not without grounds, that the auction would not go off smoothly if the date was known by the occupants.

The ominous appraisal was this time written by an engineer by the name of Erwin B. Stenkewitz. He has falsely written in the appraisal that the house is squatted when there are contracts. Also, the illusory value of 1.670.000 Euro was made up by him. If you have questions, you can visit him at Dahemstr. 25, 12527 Berlin.

Losers of Business
The Berlin cops are shitting themselves thinking of the recent events in Copenhagen. In some newspaper reports it is also mentioned that they see it as fatal that the auction’s date is so near to the 1st of May - even though it should be well-known to them that it doesn’t matter when the Köpi and the neighbouring plot are going to be auctioned. The feared “high mobilisation potential” and the expected material damage in case of the auction can be expected at any time.

Eternal Winners
The Köpi stands for a non-hierarchical and non-commercial connection between culture and politics. For 17 years, many large events have taken place in Köpi and through its unique character, the house has become internationally well-known.

Activists and visitors to the Köpi are not only from Berlin and other towns in Germany but also from many countries around Europe and the rest of the world.

We are not willing to let them take our free spaces and are going to fight them with all means at our disposal to keep them.


Enough is Enough!
The number of incidents over the last couple of months, such as the building of the nursing home right next to Köpi, the raid on some public rooms on the premises, the spying on Köpi from the Verdi building across the road, has now reached a critical stage with the planned auction on the 8th of May.

As the Köpi is located in a prime area in the eye of investors (the so-called “Media Spree”), the property value is high.

Potential customers, speculators and investors should be warned: buying the house could be more expensive than calculated because Köpi remains a capital risk!


That’s why we call for:
Demo: Saturday, the 5th of May 2007, 15:00 – assembly point to be announced.

Rally: Tuesday, the 8th of May 2007, 7:00 – in front of the district court Mitte, Littenstr. 12-17, at the time of the auction

black frog
- e-mail: blackfrog@alphabetthreat.co.uk
- Homepage: http://www.56a.org.uk/warham.html