Here follows an update about what happened and our current state:

As written earlier, the organizers of the occupation of the house are now gone. We would like to give you our take on the evening of 9th May, where things escalated, leading to a defacto eviction.

As written earlier, Thursday morning we realized that our mail account were hacked by them (the password was changed) and the blockade of the upper floor also continued. We tried to reach out in person to the blockading group, to discuss what is going on. We made clear that they have to leave this house, but we want to discuss the terms. This was refused. After that we sent all four of them an email, asking them to end the blockade and suggesting a meeting with someone from ReachOut on Friday morning. This option was refused. As they had hinted that more people were coming later, we thought they might carry out their plan of occupying the house the same day. We also found out that they had pepper spray. We weren’t prepared for this, only three of us were in the house, and didn’t have any knowledge about what exactly was happening upstairs. We called out for support.

We wanted to prevent an escalation and violence, we made clear to our supporters that the plan is not the eviction. It is not how things went.
The occupation was not to happen on Thursday, but we just couldn’t have known and as we wrote earlier, trust was completely broken. Our recollection of what happened so far is that the people blocking the upper floor started barricading themselves throughout the day. They had also piled up sharp things, metal sticks and bricks. As it turned out later, there also was a sharp Kubotan (metal weapon usually used for selfdefence) involved on their side.

After changing the locks, we managed to cross the barricade upstairs and about 8 people entered the upper floor. Some of them had covered their faces, because they didn’t want to be seen on the internet with a distorted represantation, and also as a protection against pepper spray. The blockading group of about 8+ people got scared and angry, started shouting. More of our supporters started to go upstairs. There were about 20 people upstairs now and the conflict was escalating at the door to our event room. The blockading group were beating people, we didn’t beat back. One person from their group was striking with the Kubotan and people got injured, some of them quite badly. We still tried to stay de-escalative.

Eventually the cops appeared. They told us someone called, because it was loud. Things settled somewhat, but we had to make a decision if we wanted to declare that the four people don’t live here and can be taken by the cops. We decided against it, just send away their supporters, but we were helpless at that point. What are we going to do now? We can not close the door anymore – the cops told us. We can not make them leave. But there is no way we can safely reside in this house together. Also at this point we found the weapons they were storing in the project room: Bricks, sharp objects, scissors and dismantled metal bars from the football table without figures on them. So the trust was totally gone and we were scared of what’s coming next. Also drugs were included, we didn’t know in which state of mind the others are.

Then we realized that one of our housemates is more seriously injured on the eye and that they have to go to the emergency room. One person (a pregnant one) and another PoC person accompanied them, the rest stayed to figure out what to do. When the injured person and their company were about to leave with a cab, two people of the blockading group started throwing stones at them from the staircase outside of the house. The stone shower got stronger and more aggressive, eventually breaking the windows of the cab. The people inside were ok, just scared; this time the cops were called (by the cab driver). And the two people throwing stones got an official house ban until 14 o clock the next day. They took their medicine and left. After some time we realized that the others were also gone and we used the opportunity to change all locks.

The next day we moved the things of the two people with the weapon and throwing stones to a storage and informed them that they were not allowed to come close to this house ever again. The other two were offered a flat until the end of the month again. They refused and we booked storage space for them outside the house for their things.

If you have any questions or comments or additions to this story, on anything we got wrong or left out, please write us an email.

With solidarity,

M29