Skip Nav | Home | Mobile | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Security | Support Us

World

Greece: Prapopoulou squat attacked, one immigrant beaten

Evgenia | 02.08.2009 01:48 | Free Spaces | Migration | World

Fascist attack against a squat in Greece.


On 1 August 2009 at 02:00 AM two thugs in helmets stopped with their motorcycle by the Prapopoulou squat and using iron bars they tried (unsuccessfully) to break doors and windows.

By pure chance at that moment a homeless immigrant, friend of the squat, was inside. When the thugs took notice of him, they launched a savage attack with their iron bars, hitting his head and body while engaging in racist hate speech. They then left, leaving behind them a container filled with petrol.

Neighbours heard the attacked man pleading for help and called an ambulance and nursed him. The fascist thugs failed to damage the squat. The general assembly was mobilised immediately, including comrades in solidarity. The fascists managed to injure, fortunately nor seriously, an immigrant.

Another parastate attack which comes to boost the state’s attempts towards the fascisticisation of society, against the repressed and struggling societal strata, the immigrants, and the self-managed social spaces and occupations.

Prapopoulou squat, Greater Athens Area, Greece

 http://protovouliaxalandriou.blogspot.com/

Original announcement in Greek:  http://protovouliaxalandriou.blogspot.com/2009/08/blog-post.html

Translated in English by Evgenia. Please show your solidarity.

About the Prapopoulou squat:


Prapopoulou Squat is located in a suburb of Athens, Greece that is called Halandri. The building is an old upper class house which is surrounded by a big garden. This private property had been abandoned for 34 years, until 2 years ago a group of people from different ages and political references decided to transform it into a space of creativity and resistance.

The squat functions as an open political-cultural space and as a base for political action out of the squat and is not used for housing. It is based on anti-hierarchy, equality, self-management and non-commercial relationships and doesn’t cooperate with the state, political parties or any other authoritarian structure. The management is done only by open assemblies where anyone interested can participate. The decisions are taken collectively through consensus respecting the differences in political views. There is a borrowing library, organic cultivation where we often share some of the vegetables with the neighbors and encourage people to participate, free cinema each week, a group that promotes the use of bicycle and repairs old bicycles, free Spanish lessons, theatrical plays and more. We also installed a do-it-yourself wind turbine which finally didn't work out and we are now experimenting with photovoltaic technology considering autonomy in energy us an aspect of the struggle. Our events vary from theater for children, fiestas, concerts until conversations and projections about the conditions in prisons, the Zapatistas, the rebellion of Oaxaca, public spaces and development, green capitalism and army objection. At all our events we don't charge an entrance fee and the expenses are covered by voluntary contribution in a box of economic support, with the perspective to promote solidarity and avoid commercial and authoritarian relationships.

We emphasize on local action, having good relationships with the neighborhood and on interacting with society. The space is free for anyone who wants to use it if he, she respects the characteristics of the squat. We act against plans of the municipality about restriction of public spaces and development of areas of green. We have done several actions in the central square of our neighborhood, giving many texts under the sound of music and of announcements. We are also active in central political issues working frequently with other groups (mostly anarchist and autonomous), co-organizing demonstrations and events for solidarity to political prisoners, to squats under state or para-state repression, concerning environmental issues, against prisons, against elections and more.

But the natural functioning of the squat was violently blocked. After one year and a half of many events, actions and resisting, the state, its police, and their best friends the fascist groups, provoked a serious attack on the squat. Para-state nationalists broke into the squat in the night of the Greek independence-day anniversary in March of 2008, burned the wooden roof and the library and destroyed a big part of the house. Facing the sight of destruction and smelling the odour of repression, looking at each other we realized that the only sure thing was that they burned nothing that could not be restored. They failed to burn even to a minimum, all those important things that motivated us to keep on what we are doing, like the comradeship between all of us who participle in the squat and our determination to keep on with the struggle.

A march of 500 people was organized in the neighborhood of the house that shouted out that we are still here, and that the struggle goes on. From this point, we have put a lot of effort and time to reestablish the house, receiving a moving wave of solidarity from squatters, anarchists, leftists and neighbors that was expressed mainly in hands for work and money to buy materials. Seeking or accepting money and help from the municipality or other authoritarian institutions was excluded from the beginning. The weekly events had stopped for a while in order to concentrate on the works, but now we are starting to come back arranging new ones. Self-organization was always our way and continues to be, walking in solidarity step by step towards freedom and aiming for social liberation.

Few words about squats and autonomous spaces in Greece:

The first squats (with political characteristics) were established roughly 25 years ago, with influences from similar movements that took place all over Europe. In most cases squats in Greece have their ideological basis mostly in the political theory and actions of anarchism and autonomy, and less in the need of accommodation as basic motive for an occupation. However, lately, due to the rising number of immigrants many empty houses are used as shelter, but it still remains a phenomenon that does not gain much attention. During the last decades squats and autonomous spaces have been related, directly or indirectly, with revolutionary processes and fights. Today, there exist about 18 "well known" squats in 7 cities, the majority of which are gathered in the two bigest cities of Greece, Athens and Salonica.

Many of these squats cover also the housing needs of the people involved. There are autonomous spaces which are rented as well, and many occupied spaces inside the universities. All these procedures are spreading in the society the ideas of self-organization, solidarity, equality and resistance, are independent from political parties and try from their own existence to be small examples of the world we are fighting for. However, rarely squats or autonomous spaces in Greece have become widely acceptable from the local society and still with even more difficulty can they gain the support and the solidarity of wider parts of society, but nothing changes from one day to another.

In the sector of repression the situation is getting continuously more difficult with the promotion of new repressive laws that consider the occupation of public buildings with counterterrorist measures and use of special forces of police, and an increasing wave of fascist, para-state attacks. While a lot of squats are located in spaces of property of universities and are protected from police intervention (thanks to the "asylum"), they face the danger of declassification of academic space through a process of privatization for commercial exploitation.

Recent examples of squats that closed are the "Santa Barbara Squat" which was demolished, as well as the "Myllerou and Germanikou squat" which was terminated violently in the name of reconstruction and "development" of the region, and “I.K.A.” squat in Larisa that was also demolished. Under the threat of eviction is also the squat of factory Yfanet in Salonica, which is also the biggest occupation in Greece. Recent fascist attacks include the arson attempt of Villa Amalias squat (18 years of existence), attack with knives inside the anarchist space “Antipnoia” and many others arson attempts against political and syndicalism spaces that come to complete state repression, and create a condition of fear and insecurity.

Facing a situation that appears to bother so intensely those who are above, who try to extinguish any source of diversity and revolt against their institutions, solidarity is our weapon in our common fight for freedom and life.

THE LAND BELONGS TO THOSE WHO CULTIVATE IT, AND THE ABANDONED HOUSES TO THOSE WHO OCCUPY THEM


From the regions of northern Athens
For social liberation
Prapopoulou Squat
Athens, December 2008

protovouliaxalandriou.blogspot.com

Evgenia

Comments

Display the following comment

  1. solidarity — Uri

Publish

Publish your news

Do you need help with publishing?

/regional publish include --> /regional search include -->

World Topics

Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista

Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

Server Appeal Radio Page Video Page Indymedia Cinema Offline Newsheet

secure Encrypted Page

You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.

If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech