reclaiming spaces: news

Donald Trump has asked Aberdeenshire Council to use their power to force families out of their homes.  He wants to clear people from the land to build a controversial housing and golf complex.  He expects the council to help by using Compulsory Purchase powers which are meant to be reserved for public infrastucture like schools, roads and hospitals.

The council will vote on 1st October. It’s up to local councillors to decide whether or not to force local families out of their homes.

We have until 1st October to push Aberdeenshire Council to stand up to Donald Trump. Please sign the petition now and help build the pressure.

Please sign the petition here

To find out more about the campaign and read the stories of those threatened with losing their homes please visit the Tripping Up Trump campaign web site.

September 23rd, 2009 | Category: Urgent calls and petitions |  Print This Post | Leave a comment

http://bashne.net/

Petition against the Construction of the Okhta Center Tower (Saint Petersburg)

We, the undersigned, would like to express our opposition to the planned construction of the 396-meter-tall Okhta Center skyscraper in Saint Petersburg.

We believe that construction cannot be allowed to go ahead. Erecting a building of this height would irreversibly ruin the Petersburg cityscape, which is recognized as a cultural treasure not only within our city, but also around the country and the world.

Please also read the text on the “urgent petitions” page.

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September 14th, 2009 | Tags: Capitalism, Right to the City, urban speculation | Category: Uncategorized, Urgent calls and petitions, Russia |  Print This Post | Comments (4)

Line in front of the business-centre “Karelia”, where the the public hearing over the planed “Gazprom city” took place

See more photos:

Photo reportage part 1

Photo reportage part 2

The pubic hearing on “Gazprom city” in St. Petersburg was scheduled on Sept. 1st, the traditional begining of the russian school year. But neither this important day for Russian families nor the early hour could prevent hundreds of protesters from a wide range of urban initiatives and political groups to show up. They insisted to take part in the decisions taken for their city and to rise their voices against a project, that insulted the very identity of the inhabitants of this most beautiful city, of which the center is entirely protected by UNESCO having a World Cultural Heritage status.

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September 14th, 2009 | Tags: Capitalism, Right to the City, urban speculation | Category: Right to the City, Russia, transactions & privatisations |  Print This Post | Leave a comment

European Coordination Via Campesina

Reclaim the Fields

European Camp To Cultivate Alternatives

30th of September - 4th of October 2009, Minerve (France)

The young people of European Coordination of Via Campesina are organizing an European camp to gather people who wish to settle in agriculture, who are young peasants, landless peasants and/or who want to recover food sovereignty.

The growing global crisis on farming, climate, energy, biodiversity and societies has a great impact on billions of people’s lives. This crisis is tightly linked to the replacement of sustainable small-scale farming by industrial and corporate ways of production and consumption. Just as numerous billions have been given to the banks over the last year, the support of governments for neo-liberal policies continue to annihilate small-scale farming and peasantry all over the world. These policies destroy ways of life which have proved to maintain a harmonious link between human beings and their environment. In Europe these driving forces almost bring small-scale farming and peasantry to the point of extinction by making it difficult for settled peasants to survive and for young farmers to settle.

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August 27th, 2009 | Tags: Access to Land, call for solidarity, Capitalism, reclaiming spaces, Resistance | Category: Uncategorized, Urgent calls and petitions, movements, France, action, transactions & privatisations |  Print This Post | Leave a comment

Climate Camp Site Taken at Blackheath, Greenwich in London.

http://qik.com/climatecamp

http://twitpic.com/photos/climatecamp

http://www.youtube.com/user/climatelife

http://london.indymedia.org/articles/1978

On the 26 August 2009 hundreds of Climate activists converge on Blackheath in Greenwich for the set up of the 2009 London Climate Camp. Groups gathered at locations across the city for midday, awaiting instructions to be sent by SMS which led them in stages towards the site. The starting locations were specifically chosen to highight ecological or social issues which Climate Camp seeks to draw attention to. There were groups at the head offices of oil corporations BP and Shell, at the headquarters of mining company Rio Tinto, at the site of the 2012 Olympics and at the sites of the deaths of Jean Charles de Menezes and Ian Tomlinson. Each swoop group had speeches which explained the relevance of the sites and how they linked in with the ethos of the camp.

By 2pm Indymedia had reported the site was taken and the process of assembling the marquees, tents, tripods and perimeter fences for the camp began - the advance team were soon joined by the converging swoopers (pics). By 4pm, with over a thousand people now on site the camp had its first meeting which looked at the significance of the site’s location in Blackheath, which has a history of association with protests in England, notably during the peasants revolt of 1381 (See Press Release)

See [Indymedia Reports + Pics 1 2 3] [Site Pics 1 2 3]

See also CC twitpic stream | CC Video Stream | Youtube Site Videos

Climatecamp website pics: Bike Swoop Photos (2) | Site take photos | Set up pics | Settling In

See also: Flickr Pictures | TV News Reports |Ecoterrarist’s Twitter Coverage Blog 1 2

August 27th, 2009 | Tags: Access to Land, Capitalism, G20, reclaiming spaces, Resistance, Right to the City | Category: Climate Camp, Right to the City, movements, UK, repression, action, squats |  Print This Post | Leave a comment

In Sulukule, after heavy public pressure it seems that the responsible housing administrations (TOKI) now give the solidarity groups the chance to propose a an alternative plan. We urgently need international support at this critical moment.

Attached please find the urgent call and sample letter.

urgent-call-for-sulukule

sulukule-dayanisma-mektubu

solidarity-with-sulukule-studio

Thanks for your kind solidarity.

Aysim Turkmen

6 August, 2009

URGENT CALL FROM THE SULUKULE STUDIO

The Situation in the Sulukule Neighborhood As you may know, in the renewal process of the Historical Peninsula of Istanbul, the Roman community that has been living in the quarter of Sulukule for over 500 years has been forced to leave the neighborhood. The neighborhood was demolished almost entirely by the Fatih district municipality in order TOKI (The Mass Housing Institution of Turkey) to start the constructions. Around %10 of the existing housing units are still awaiting for demolishment and renewal committee’s and court’s decisions are expected in the following months.

An Alternative Plan

Opposing the forced evictions, demolitions and sales to the third parties under the pressure of the Law 5366, an alternative project, STOP, was prepared by a group of volunteers in September 2008 with the decision of the Sulukule Platform. The STOP project was developed in consideration of the local community’s way of living and needs. It was based on the understanding that any intervention in the area must not be limited with physical renewal but must be developed on the basis of economic and social rehabilitation of the locals and cultural sustainability of the Roman community.

The experts and concerned civilians, who developed the STOP project, have managed to present their alternative project to the local municipality and the Renewal Committee of Istanbul, however, the negotiations did not last long.

Nevertheless, the Sulukule Platform did not stop their efforts tocommunicate to the local and international institutions and the media insisting that the district municipality’s plan was a violation of the housing rights and in particular of the vulnerable Roman community.

A Hope for Sulukule

Due to the pressure of the local and international media and institutions including the threat of UNESCO (of leaving out Istanbul from the World Heritage List because of violating the conventions) in June 2009, TOKI requested the volunteers of the STOP project to present it. In July 2009, representatives of the volunteers had a meeting with TOKI in Ankara. In this meeting, the basics of the project were explained and TOKI asked the volunteers to revise the project according to the current situation of the neighborhood, which was demolished almost entirely by then, in one month time. After the meeting, a new workshop (Sulukule Studio), initially consisted of Sulukule Platform and Solidarity Atelier but open to any participation and support, has started to work on the alternative project. At the moment, this workshop is in full progress for an alternative plan that aims to regain the housing rights of Sulukule residents and minimize the damage that has been caused so far.

The initial decisions were shared with a larger public and the media in two meetings and a huge support was received. As the volunteers of the alternative project, we would like to make an urgent call to the concerned institutions to give their support at this critical period in order to encourage TOKI to consider the alternative project seriously.

We have prepared a sample letter for the institutions to fax the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the president of TOKI, Erdoğan Bayraktar, and the local mayor, Mustafa Demir. However, we would like to stress that we would appreciate the institutions prepare their own versions of this letter.

Please forward a copy of the fax to the e-mail provided below.

Thank you very much for your support.

Kind regards,

Sulukule Studio

T.C. BASBAKANLIK

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

Prime Minister

Kızılay / Ankara

Tel: (0090) 312 418 57 76

Fax: (0090) 312 417 04 76

e-mail:  buro.ozelkalem at basbakanlik.gov.tr

TOKI

T.C.BAŞBAKANLIK TOPLU KONUT İDARESİ

BAŞKANLIĞI

Erdoğan Bayraktar (The President of TOKI)

Bilkent Plaza B1 Blok 06800 Bilkent /

ANKARA

Tel: (0090) 312 266 76 80

Fax: (0090) 312 266 77 48

ebayraktar at toki.gov.tr

FATIH MUNICIPALITY (the local municipality)

Mustafa Demir (Fatih Mayor)

Büyük Karaman Cad. No. 53 Fatih /

ISTANBUL

Tel: (212) 444 0 176

Fax: (212) 453 14 83

e-mail: mustafademir at fatih.bel.tr

Contacts of Sulukule Studio:

Aysim Türkmen Derya Nuket Özer

e-mail: aysimt at yahoo.com

e-mail: deryanuket at gmail.com

Sulukule Studio

August 14th, 2009 | Tags: call for solidarity, eviction, Resistance, Right to the City | Category: countries, Turkey |  Print This Post | Leave a comment

http://www.openshoreditch.net/

Following a long running campaign by OPEN Shoreditch a major developer has now abandoned its plans to demolish and redevelop The Light building at 233, Shoreditch High Street in London.

Hammerson’s Managing Director, Martin Jepson, announced yesterday that “Following the local campaign to preserve the Light Bar building, we are preparing amended proposals for our Bishops Place regeneration project. We believe we have found a way to incorporate the building into the proposals. We are now preparing a scheme to submit to the Council that recognises this Shoreditch landmark alongside delivering much needed investment for Hackney.”

More info about community and autonomous action can be found here :

http://bowlcourt.wordpress.com/

August 14th, 2009 | Tags: reclaiming spaces | Category: UK, countries, evictions & demolitions, action, transactions & privatisations |  Print This Post | Leave a comment

Three months before the opening of the Universiade, Belgrade’s City Secretariat for Inspections decided to destroy the Roma slum settlement located right next to the athlete’s village “Belleville”. On April the 3rd 2009 all of a sudden a couple of bulldozers showed up at the settlement and demolished 40 houses. As the demolition was carried out without any prior notice to the residents, the people did not even have time to save their belongings from being buried under the ruins. A few of them were practically rescued from their houses in the very moment when the bulldozers were demolishing them.

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July 16th, 2009 | Category: Urgent calls and petitions, evictions & demolitions |  Print This Post | Leave a comment

By now we all know about the mess that was the eviction of the Climate Camp In The City, which was Climate Camp’s genuinely novel idea to set up home in Threadneedle Street - the heart of London’s banking district, over the G20 summit.
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May 12th, 2009 | Tags: G20, Resistance, Right to the City, repression | Category: G20 London, Right to the City, Uncategorized, movements, UK, repression, evictions & demolitions, action, squats |  Print This Post | Leave a comment