Report taken from: ”Demonstration
for liberated spaces in Vienna on February 2nd” (fightnow.noblogs.org)
On Saturday 2nd of February, 2013, a demonstration for the defense and
expansion of liberated spaces worldwide took place in Vienna. It was the first
day of the transnational campaign for a
black february, a day when demonstrations and actions for similar causes
happened in several cities around the world.
The demonstration was loud and lively. The route passed the offices of the
owners of the Viennese squat Pizzeria
Anarchia, the place were the buildings of the Epizentrum used to be (a big
occupation in October/November 2011, the buildings were demolished just days
after the eviction), the building of the green party (who is in the city government
since a few years), the Ammerlinghaus
(one of the oldest projects in Vienna that were won by occupation) and ended at
the office of the company owning the building of the K.v.U. project in Berlin. There were chants
all the time, many flyers passed out, and verbal inputs at all the important
spots that were passed.
Apart from the situation in Berlin and Vienna, transnational solidarity was an important
topic of the demonstration. So the demonstration also visit also the Votiv
church that is occupied by protesting refugees since several weeks. Refugees speaked to the demonstrators and demonstrators to
the refugees. Refugees told, there are ill people in the church and they need
help and benefit-actions.
It was initiated by people from Berlin, mostly by supporters of the project K.v.U,
the network "Wir bleiben
alle!" and the North East Antifa.
The K.v.U. is an project that dates back to the ending times of the east-german
GDR and has been a place for antagonistic (youth-)culture and antifascism in
Berlin ever since. Now it is threatened by eviction, because the investor company
"Immowert", which has its seat in Vienna, bought the buildings
that are home to the K.v.U. and wants them
to move out immediately. This already brought K.v.U. supporters to Vienna before,
and connections were made among others with the collective of Pizzeria Anarchia.
The idea to make a demonstration together has been around for a while, and the
rather small movement in Vienna could definetely make use of some support from
other cities.
In Vienna, the demo was also mobilised for and supported by the platzda! Campaign, the Pankahyttn. The Autonome Antifa Wien also published the
call for the demonstration on they're website. K.v.U and Friends also joined the day before the Demonstration of Autonome Antifa Wien against the far right mass-event Wiener Akademikerball.
Informations about the situation of Pizzeria Anarchia
The Pizzeria Anarchia is also threatened by eviction. The old house with a pizzeria
in the ground floor has been a brutal example of the methods real estate
investors use to make a maximum profit: People with older and rather cheap
rental contracts are being driven out of their homes with pressure and terror,
to renovate the whole house and later sell each apartment individually, usually
to people of a totally different income range than the people living there
before. The company that owns the house of Pizzeria Anarchia in Muehlfeldgasse
12, Castella GmbH, has a special business model in this process: They buy old
houses with just a few tenants left, people that the previous owners didn't
manage to get out, because older rent contracts are usually unlimited in time
and the rents often much lower than the flats you can find nowadays. By legal
means, it's almost impossible to get people out of flats like that. So the
prices of houses with a few people renting on an old contract are comparably
low. If someone manages to get the people out anyways, possible profits are
very high.
Castella GmbH is specialized on this kind of houses, and their creativity to terrorize
the people until they move out seems endless - stinking chemicals or oil poured
out in the stairways, constantly broken front doors to produce a feeling of
lack of safety, missing windows or gas supply turned off in the middle of the
winter, people with dogs aggressively knocking at the doors late at night
telling people to move out, neglect of neccessary repairs and cleaning, usually
groundless.
but still scary legal threats against tenants...
At first, the owners of the house thought the people of Pizzeria Anarchia could
be usefull to their goal of driving out the people still living there with old contracts,
so they allowed them for the first half year to stay in the Pizzeria and some
of the empty flats for free. But of course the people from the Pizzeria collective
never wanted to play that role, and started friendly relations with the older
tenants from the beginning. They are people who insisted on staying
there even though the previous owner had managed to get empty thirteen flats in
a short time, and despite the terror that started since Castella GmbH owned the
house.
After some time, the pizzeria turned into a lively meeting place not only for the
people living in the house, but also for people of the neighbourhood and the antagonistic
movement in Vienna. Every sunday, pizza is made for everybody with the
principle of free donation, on tuesday films are being shown, there is an info
shop with a small library and a free shop were everybody can bring and take what
they need.
Towards the end of the "legal" time last June, a campaign against the
owners was launched, exposing their methods of throwing people out of their
homes for profit.
The topic was picked up by much of mainstream media, and the fact that the people
of Pizzeria Anarchia, usually displayed as "punks", bound up with the
old tenants against the brutal owners was a much-wondered-at curiosity. Now it
was clear that the owners had made a mistake to let the Pizzeria people in, and
that they were actually the biggest obstacle to their success. It is clear that
they will not get the tenants out of the house as long as the pizzeria
collective is there, too. And even the eviction cases against people in other
houses owned by
the company were dropped, at least for a while.
On the 2nd of August 2012, the owners tried to evict the pizzeria and the flats
used by the collective, with the help of about twelve construction workers, two
private detectives and a locksmith. They tried to also get the support of the police,
but failed to agitate them to directly participate in the eviction, even though
they ignored all crossings of legal boundaries by the owners and cooperated
with them to some degree. But people were mobilised to support the
house, and it was managed to defend it. After more than twelve hours, in the middle
of the night, the bosses of Castella and their gang gave up and withdrew. Since
then, there is a case in the district court to evict the pizzeria collective
"the legal way", and now it is practically over, even though the verdict
is not spoken yet. But it is clear that the court will order to execute the
"right" of the owners eventually. So probably within the next few
months,
the state will try to evict the house and return it to the hands of Castella GmbH.
Lots of support will be needed to
prevent this from happening.
Solidarity across and against all borders!
For the defense and expansion of liberated spaces!
Fascists and Cops out of our neighbourhoods!
Last update:
On 3rd February (Sunday) the “pizzeria” was attacked by unknown
people.
