new socialcenter squatted in amsterdam, Fuck the Squattingban!

[Sasha]

http://www.indymedia.nl/img/2011/07/77591.jpg

After years of dilipidation the former pet asylum is turned into a new social center for Amsterdam. We have plans for all sorts of activities but first we need to clean and reconstruct the place.

Developing the Polderweggebied is one of Amsterdam East's prestige projects. According to the plans the development should have been finished years aho but the developers will not start building until the market improves. The planned House of Dance appears to have been cancelled. The music center MusiQ is the only thing that appears to have worked out (after the neighborhood council injected a sum of 30 million into it). The empty space of the Polderweggebied (redubbed Oostpoort) now symbolizes how the wet dreams of developers and the councils turned into a nightmare.

There is just one building on the plain: the former pet ayslum. The building wasn't demolished because of its monumental status but the neighborhood council let it rot for years. Plans of neighborhood residents to use the building were unsuccessful as a result of bureaucratic obstinacy.

We want to create a space without subsidies or profit motives. What exactly will happen in the new center depends on the idea from the environment and the efforts of volunteers. But for now we're busy fixing the place. The building has been sorely neglected for years, there are no services and some spaces are unbelievably dirty. In the following weeks, we will clean and reconstruct, so please come by if you want to help.

http://www.indymedia.nl/images/mail_small.gifE-Mail: [email protected] ([email protected])
http://www.indymedia.nl/images/link_small.gif Website: http://valreep.wordpress.com/
https://twitter.com/#!/devalreep (https://twitter.com/#%21/devalreep)

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more pictures and updates:
http://www.indymedia.nl/nl/2011/07/77576.shtml

[ellipsis]

1) is a pet asylum a place for criminally insane pets?:D

2)why are meetings conducted in english? international participants?

Your/this crew looks bad ass. That grinder cutter thing is awesome and it looks like they also made their own pry bars from rebar!

Solidarity and good luck!

[Sasha]

1) is a pet asylum a place for criminally insane pets?:D

t is now :D


2)why are meetings conducted in english? international participants?

2. the amsterdam squat movement is about 50/50 dutch/international, english is the default here.


Your/this crew looks bad ass. That grinder cutter thing is awesome and it looks like they also made their own pry bars from rebar!

wait till you see our personally developed hydraulic jack and our battering rams.
we got some good hardcore toys.
but to be honest i pride myself more on the fact that most breakers can open 99% of the doors in under a minute without any or much dammage.



Solidarity and good luck!

thanx. the local council said today they want to evict asap but it seems we have some good arguments to make this one last a while

on an sadder note, the court today ruled that the 6 remaining anonymous activists from the 150 that got nicked a few weeks ago at the eviction of schijnheilig are legally thrown in illegals detention, no matter allmost all speak fluently dutch.
one of them is still in hungerstrike.

solidarity website: http://5thofjulysoli.noblogs.org/

[ellipsis]

also could you explain the interaction with the police shown in the video, i.e. why was he let in and what were those papers that he was shown. police interactions with homes not jails at demos is of a different nature.

[Sasha]

before the squattingban the whole squatting thing was highly ritualized, you could legally squat any place that was not in use for more than an year.
so after an squat action we ourselfs would call the cops and would show them around the property. this helped us in that the cops would make an offical repport it was indeed empty/not in use on the moment of squatting and prevented that owners falsely could claim to have valuable stuff inside that we nicked. (in some neighborhoods the cops would even go so far as to make official note of the count on the electricity, water and gas meters so we could legally apply for utilities and not have to pay for stuff used before we moved in.)
we then would also supply the cops with as much of proof as we could find about how long the place was-, and probably would remain empty which the cops then would give to the DA who would make an first assessment whether the squat was legal.
the squatting ban ofcourse changed a lot in this but most cops, especially on an rainy afternoon with almost no backup and over a 100 masked up squatters in front of them still prefer to act like nothing changed.
we dont allow them acces to the building anymore but most times we still do show them the state of the outside of the building and either let them peek through an window or show some pictures/film we just took inside, i believe some days before we offically squatted this place some people went in on an nightly visit and took pics of the state of the place and i assume thats what in he papers shown to the cops

here is an short documetary about the way squatting would go before the ban:
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[ellipsis]

That film was mentioned at the homes not jails meeting the same day you posted it, and not by me.

[ellipsis]

i know this is kinda necroing, but what ever happened with this project?

[Sasha]

Still there, they waged a excellent political campaign over the last months and things are for now looking optimistic for them: http://valreep.wordpress.com/

[ellipsis]

Nice! hopefully they aren't being haunted by the ghosts of criminally insane pets.

[Sasha]

The dutch word for animalshelter is dierenasiel, asiel being a similar word to asylum although actually translating to sanctuary in the sense of "getting sanctuary" (asiel verkrijgen)
It's a very common translation error :p

[ellipsis]

oh in that case i hope they aren't being haunted by the ghosts of animals fleeing political violence. :D

[Sasha]

Yeah, asylumseeker is also asielzoeker in dutch