In the aftermath of #OccupyGezi protests, a group had occupied an unused space and turned it into a Community House in Istanbul’s Kadikoy district. Officially, it is the second place that has been occupied in Turkey, right after Gezi Park itself. For some time, the house had been targeted by the authorities and faced eviction. One more notification has just arrived to the squat house recently and informs of eviction to begin at 10 am on December 5th, on friday.
The occupiers have declared a public statement calling for solidarity and support from all friends, inviting them for a defense of the house at 9am.
The statement follows:
“We, who revolted to prevent concretion of our lives one and a half years ago, are people who do not look alike but suffer from same grievances.There is a house in our neighborhood whose door is open to anyone. A publicly owned abandoned place that we brought into use, a place that everyone can pull up a chair and catch their breath, join in a deep conversation while having some tea, a place that belongs to all of us. This house was brought into being by the contribution and labor of thousands of people up until now, as a place that everyone can cook and eat together, that has a library, dark room, carpenter’s shop, swap market, as a place for everyone who is willing to talk, discuss and produce.We are the residents who embrace the ones go down under alive and come out dead, whose heads with gas canisters, whose infant bodies with bullets, whose dark bodies with bombs smashed into pieces, as our own neighbors. We are your neighbors, who long for soil among piles of concrete and thus create gardens, who protect disaster assembly areas for the coming earthquake from concretion, who discuss over their desires regarding our neighborhood, who take it to the streets wearing bathrobes, stinking of lack of water during shortages or who keep watch in our parks and streets against any quarrel.We heard that they will come to shut our doors down. Those tyrants who have taken an oath to sell everything that is beautiful and everything that lives; every drop of water, every tree and every shadow, they will attempt to wreck our house on us. We invite everyone whose hearts beat with ours to our Community Center/Squat to defend our common space that we are in existence all together, shoulder to shoulder on Friday, the 5th of December, at 9 am.This house belong to all of us, let us defend it together.CAFERAGA SOLIDARITYMeeting,Date: 5th of December, Friday, 9 amAddress: Hacı Şükrü sok. No: 24Caferağa Mahallesi, Kadıköy”
The Radical Democrat 