Categories
Capitalist crisis Direct actions

October 31: general strike in Barcelona

Back in September, CGT announced a general strike for October 31 around the whole Spanish state. Weeks later, yellow unions CCOO and UGT called for another one on November 14 and CGT decided to move its strike to the same day as the main unions. Nonetheless, CGT kept the strike in Barcelona for October 31 (labelling it as “Day of struggle”), where local CNT had also called for a general strike. The impact has been minimum, as expected, but sectors such as metro, taxis or post offices have recorded high numbers of strikers.

Several pickets had been organised during the morning in several neighbourhoods, while CNT had called for a central picket at plaça Catalunya. Along the way, an Apple Store and a Zara were attacked by protesters and shut down.

Categories
Capitalist crisis

Poster appeared on the streets of València

We are the 50% of unemployed young people, the hundreds of families evicted every week, the migrants being harrassed each day, the pensioners struggling to make ends meet, the fired workers, the precarious ones, the exploited ones. Those who cannot stand this situation anymore, those who are fed up of being lied while they take advantage of our misery and they steal our future.

But we are also those who have dignity, those who day after day break the unfair laws in order to survive, those who feel this system is a fraud, those who stand up against power by organising ourselves, those who defy the strategy of fear by taking the streets, those who they won’t be able to stop. We are the ones who fight and this has just started…

When the injustice becomes law, revolt is duty

Categories
Capitalist crisis Social control and repression

Demonstration in Madrid against the State repression

A demonstration has been called in Madrid for October 20 against the repression suffered by social movements since the beginning of the May 15M movement back in 2011 or generally since the capitalist crisis started. Below is the statement calling for the demontrations.

The crisis of the capitalist system has been getting worse over the past four years, laying on our shoulders the heavy burden of their crisis through harsh measures.

In order to deactivate and fight labour mobilizations, identifications, arrests, fines have increased, the struggle is criminalized, police-legal set-ups are invented, repression against workers in the workplace, imprisonment, draft amendments to the penal code, illegalisations, ill-treatment, torture, new techniques of social control as video surveillance, communication interventions, creation of political militancy databases, cops infiltrations, racist raids, evictions, etc.. That is, a series of repressive measures aimed at stopping the workers’ struggle and it preventing it from extending to the whole society.

The end of this crisis is each day more far away, it gets worse every day, and so are is the austerity and the repression. Since this is a time in which the conditions for emancipatory projects materializing are given, the State does its best to spread fear throughout society and to avoid these conditions for the change being created.

Our dutiy as the only affected ones by these measures is the mobilization and the struggle. But this should not be done in isolated groups, but instead unity should be looked for. We believe that creating duplication in meetings, speeches, demonstrations, only makes us lose momentum. Therefore we call all kinds of social, political, trade union or other type of organisation to join against the repression in order to make, among other things, a large demonstration by the downtown streets of Madrid demanding the end of the repression to our class. Since it is an issue that affects us all us, we must be defend ourselves together and we should do it immediately.

Some numbers provided by the Legal Commission of Sol, which collected numbers on repression during the past year and a half: (Ed. note: only in Madrid)

Over 200 arrests recorded: in demonstrations (over 30 in the latest demonstration on September 25th), civil disobedience actions, evictions, strike pickets, occupations, etc… The most common charges are offenses on assault against authority, disobedience and resistance, public disorder, damage and offenses against the worker’s rights.

More than 700 administrative fines, the final amount from May 2011 to May 2012 would be of 217,800 euros. Hundreds of attacks, of which many of them have not been notified. Most cases are still under investigation, so it is necessary to pay attention to calls and show our solidarity with repressed people.

The only decent solution for the working class is unity and struggle.
Against repression, solidarity! If we touch they touch one of us, they touch all of us!

Source: madrizrebelde.blogspot.com.es

Categories
Speculation and squatting

Social center Casablanca in Madrid is reoccupied but evicted again, 70 people identified

Dozens of people demonstrated this afternoon in the centre of Madrid in a protest that ended up with people reoccupying and recovering the building from which the squatted and self-managed social center CSOA Casablanca had been evicted a few weeks ago. The demonstration had been called by the assemblies of Bibliosol and Archivo Físico 15M, which had a great amount of files inside the CSOA Casablanca, in order to claim the importantance of popular culture and social movements. The new project had been formed under the name of CSO Magerit.

At around 23:30pm, dozens of police vans arrived in front of the building and dispersed the people who were gathering in front of the building. Cops broke into the building (picture) and identified the 70 people who were inside at the moment. Two people were arrested by cops, according to Diagonal. There is a call for gathering against the eviction on sunday at 1:00pm at Lavapiés  Tirso de Molina square.

Pictures and report: [1], [2]

Source: lavapies.tomalosbarrios.net

Categories
Antifascism Social control and repression

Clashes between antifascists and police in Bilbo, one arrested and injured in Barcelona

An antifascist gathering had been called today in Bilbao against the presence of a group of fascists from the Falange party who had arrived from Madrid to protest in the centre of the Basque city coinciding with with the Day of the Hispanity. Police prevented antifascists from gathering, who had previously announced a non-confrontional event, and used batons and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd, which was numbering in hundreds. Clashes then started between antifascists and police, and barricades were erected around the town’s centre. At least 14 antifascists have been arrested. One fascist was arrested too by police, which seized several baseball bats and knuckles from the fascists’ buses.

In Barcelona, 200 antifascists gathered in a nearby square from where right wing militants and fascists were holding a demonstration in favour of the unity of the spanish state and against the right of selfdetermination. After the start of the gathering, a person carrying a Spanish flag tried to get in the middle of the antifascists and police charged against them, injuring one of them. The antifascist was taken to the hospital, where he was arrested by cops. Dozens of people gathered outside the hospital. A small antifascist gathering was organised too in the catalan town of Girona.

Two videos from the clashes in Bilbao [1], [2]

Source: setmanaridirecta.info / naiz.info

Categories
Direct actions

PSC office attacked in Barcelona

On October 11 the offices of the catalan branch of the PSOE in the Ciutat Vella district of Barcelona were attacked with paint and stones by a group of 10 hooded people. Nobody has claimed responsability yet for the attack.

source: mass media

Categories
Antifascism

Antifascist gathering/demonstration in Barcelona

One more year for the 12th of October*, the extreme right takes the streets around the territory. In the case of Barcelona, apart from the already traditional and allowed fascist gathering in Montjuïc, this year a demonstration has been organised in Catalunya square in defense of the unity of the Spanish state, in which we can find from the parlamentary extreme wing of the PP to fascists organisations such as MCR or PxC among the organisers and supporters.

Although demonstrations this year will obviously be marked by the debate around the selfdetermination of the Catalan people, we cannot forget the true face of these organisations and the role they have always played for the State. Many are the comrades, neighbours, friends who with the economic crisis are being led to precariety, explotation and in many cases, marginalisation. The State wants to use this occasion to try to lead this rage against those same collectives who are suffering the most the cuts, something that allows it to pass with total immunity laws such as the strip of the healthcare card to immigrants. Fascism and racism, and now as well the xenophobic spanish patriotism, have become the three biggest allies of a system that day after day collapses on its own. The fight against fascism is also the fight against the State and capital, and that’s why on the 12th of October we will counterattack once again in the streets.

We send from here all our support to the comrades in Athens who are being persecuted and tortured just for fighting against the fascism of police and Golden Dawn.

FASCISTS OUT OF OUR NEIGHBOURHOODS AND SQUARES
THEY SHALL NOT PASS!

Barcelona. Antifascist demonstration
12t of October. 11h am Universitat square

*October 12 is the Hispanity Day which celebrates the Spanish genocide against indigenous peoples in America.

Source: barcelona.indymedia.org

Categories
Capitalist crisis Direct actions

Updates about the students’ strike

We stop today… to build the tomorrow

On October 11, the first university students strike of the school year was held against tuition fee increases taken both by the central and regional goverments. The strike had been called by most of the student unions, especially the left-wing independentists ones, and demonstrations were held all around the state. In Barcelona more than 5.000 people demonstrated despite the rain and massive police presence. In the early hours of the morning, dozens of cops entered the UAB campus outside the city and prevented students from blocking the highway and railroads located next to the university. During the demonstration several buildings such as the stock exchange, the European Union offices in Barcelona and the headquarters of Convergència i Unió party (currently ruling the Catalan goverment) were attacked with paint. An ATM was set on fire and many graffitis were made along the way. 300 people demonstrated in the city of Lleida, with cops assaulting three students at the end of the demonstration and arresting one of them, accusing him of throwing objects against cops.

Demonstrations occured as well in many other cities around the state, such as Valencia, Málaga, Mallorca, Valladolid, Iruñea or Santiago de Compostela. In Bilbo, cops charged against protesters after some of them had broken into the headquarters of the Basque goverment. 90 people were identified. Hundreds of students demonstrated too in the centre of Madrid and boycotted an act by the rector of the Complutense University of Madrid.

Some links with pictures about Barcelona demonstrations [1], [2], [3]