Libertatia squat

From Balkan Anarchist Bookfair
May 9, 2025

A few words about Libertatia squat

Libertatia squat, the neoclassical listed building at the junction of Sarandaporou and Stratou streets in Thessaloniki, has been squatted since May 2008. In these 16 years it has been a hospitable place not only for those in need of housing but also for the ongoing struggle against the state, capital, capitalism and fascism. On January 21, 2018, the day of the nationalist rally on the Macedonia naming dispute and in the midst of a period when the most conservative and fanatical part of Greek society had found fertile ground for the manifestation and legitimisation of its fascist discourses and practices, Libertatia was targeted by groups of fascists and was attacked twice. The result of the second attack was the almost total arson of the building. Since then and until today, as members of the squat, with the contribution of dozens of comrades and solidarity, we have been supporting morally, materially and politically the struggle of rebuilding Libertatia. We have mentioned many times that we would like Libertatia to be a symbol of the anti-fascist struggle and not a monument to fascist violence. We believe that this has been achieved through the struggle of rebuilding Libertatia, which for 7 years has been a turning point and a reference in the movement’s legacy. The extent to which this struggle has annoyed the state is indeed evident from the attacks by the police, who successively tried to stop the works by arresting people and taking away the construction tools. By undertaking the rebuilding Libertatia initiative, we believe that we have played our part and stood our ground in the struggle against state repression, while at the same time the direct collaboration of the state with fascists has been highlighted in the most obvious way.

Of course, we know that what gives birth to fascism and parastatal violence and later nurtures them, is the very system of power that breeds intolerance, destruction and death. The existence of the state and capitalism favours the existence of fascism and vice versa. When one of the two is unable to finish its “work”, the other intervenes. As mentioned above, in the case of Libertatia, the state chose to carry out five repressive operations with the total number of arrests over the years reaching 30. In particular, four of the five times that the Greek police invaded Libertatia, the cops targeted the rebuilding struggle itself, with the last of these raids taking place on August 28, 2024 (first eviction of the squat). The last police raid (and second eviction of the squat) took place on September 25 of the same year, the day after its strong and joyful reoccupation by a big crowd of comrades and people in solidarity.

Why reoccupation and on what terms

The choice of reoccupying the building left a positive mark on the squatting movement and the anarchist movement in general, as the crowd of people in solidarity who supported either the occupation of the building or the gathering outside it, showed an active spirit and managed to increase the cost of repression to such an extent that riot police units had to retreat, temporarily cancelling the police operation. This fact, combined with our choice to reoccupy the building in daylight and with an open market, also contributed to the support of people in the neighbourhood, something that over the years we have judged to be very important for the relationships we build. Despite the fact that the second police operation at the dawn of the following day led to the eviction of the squat, we believe that the hours during which the building was back in the hands of the movement and the people in struggle showed in the most direct way the dynamics of the people fighting against the authoritarian system that surrounds us.

Libertatia was and is a living example of all that we can achieve through collectivisation, self-organisation, perseverance and patience. It is clear proof that we can indeed build not just buildings, but entire worlds. And we will fight until we succeed in building on the ruins the society we envision, a society free of states and powers, hatred and barbarism.

Where we stand today

In the last months, from the second eviction of the squat until today, we have tried to highlight the importance of the relationships we have built within the neighbourhood over the years. We continue to maintain our contacts with the locals we know, we intervene in the neighbourhood through leaflet distributions in the farmer’s market, gluing posters on the walls and organising events, as it is very important for us that the anarchist discourse exists and is highlighted in the area where Libertatia is located. At the same time, we are in the process of collecting signatures from people who live in Thessaloniki, as a tool both in the courtrooms and in the battles we will fight in the coming period against the charges we are facing “for damage to a listed building” due to the reconstruction we initiated. The process of collecting signatures has highlighted the support we have received and continue to receive from people in solidarity who believe in the just struggle of rebuilding Libertatia, because they recognise that without us the building will turn into rubble.

As the assembly of Libertatia squat, we have launched the #ReclaimLibertatia campaign. Our aim is to make the cause of Libertatia as widely known as possible to the movement and society at large. In the coming period, we will proceed with actions to highlight the struggle to defend Libertatia, calling on the people in solidarity who have supported us over the years to join the actions aimed at reclaiming the squat. We have made it known in the past that our goal is to reoccupy the building and return it back to where it belongs: in the hands of the movement, of the people in struggle, of all those who envision and fight for a world without classes, a world of real freedom, equality, justice and creation.

Squats targeted by state repression

From what has already been said above, the state’s attempt over the years to evacuate the occupied structures of struggle of the movement is evident. In particular, in the city of Thessaloniki, we see in recent years the eviction of the Orfanotrofeio squat, the evacuation of Terra Incognita and Mundo Nuevo squats in the city centre, and of Libertatia in the east part of the city. All these evictions lead us to certain conclusions in relation to the strategy of the state and capital. From the very first moment, the squatters are publicly targeted, and the buildings are presented in the media as abandoned and neglected, in order to highlight the immediate intervention that the state needs to make in order to “return these buildings to society”. Of course, the open and social character of squats is also sidelined, they are not recognised as part of the social and class struggles against capital, state and power, while the political and cultural events housed in them are downplayed. In order to draw social legitimacy, the state chooses to demolish the squats and create parks (case of Orfanotrofeio squat), to announce its intention to build boutique hotels (case of Terra Incognita squat) and create a space for the homeless or disabled (case of Mundo Nuevo squat).

For the last two cases, no procedure for the utilization of the buildings has ever proceeded, but they have been left neglected. The municipality of Thermi, which owns the Mundo Nuevo building, received large sums of state money to install sheet metal and alarms in a building that remains empty, while the Terra Incognita building, which is owned by the University, is not utilized for educational use and even the “vision” of a boutique hotel has not been fulfilled. This of course shows us that the state wishes to evacuate the occupied structures of struggle, not for some kind of “improvement” of the city buildings, but to suppress any kind of dissident voice and resistance, to suppress those who struggle against its plans. None of the “development projects” have even started, with the exception of Orfanotrofeio (and that after many years, without even creating an important for the city public park), because the state has again and again proved to be more interested in marginalising the anarchist movement and removing the anarchist discourse from the neighbourhoods and the city centre than to supposedly increase the quality of life of the residents of Thessaloniki.

Similarly, in the area of universities, dozens of student hangouts that were under occupation, as well as occupied spaces within the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki such as the Biologica squat, the AKI (self-organised space at medical school), the Primavera squat and School of Physics squatted space were evicted in recent years, supposedly with the intention to “return” them to the university community, after being used by the university authorities for the creation of a library, museums for students and canteens, or space for persons living with a disability. As authorities tried to obtain social legitimacy by using the “sledgehammers or the library” dilemma[1], we have been confronted with the increasing sterilization of universities, the abolition of the asylum, the involvement of capitalist corporations into the public university, the passing of anti-education bills leading to the further privatization of public education. All of the above have now led to a depoliticisation within the university spaces, an alienation from collective student life, an increase in individualisation and competition, a move away from the demand for better education and student living conditions (dormitories, food), decrease in participation in general assemblies and libertarian/autonomous formations, resulting in the non-radicalisation of a large part of students; the university is a place where you go to study in order to get a job and you must leave the student life without experiencing any collective value.

The importance of squats today

Squats have a dual character: on the one hand, they are structures of the anarchist movement and on the other they are means and tools of struggle. As far as being used as structures of the movement, we currently are in a political situation in which it seems that a large percentage of the people in the movement consider squats to be something obsolete. We are experiencing a regression in defending squats; the reflexes of the organised movement and the people in struggle in general are not what they used to be, as in the past an eviction or an attack on an occupied space was an important political event, in contrast to today when there are difficulties to make an eviction a central issue and to create the necessary conditions for the defence of an evicted space. Indeed, the longer the time that passes from the moment of an attack, the more the issue of an eviction leaves the political scene and the circle of defence closes. For us, squats are one of the central tools of the anarchist struggle, for the territorialisation of anarchist discourse in the neighbourhoods and the spreading of libertarian ideas in society, for social and class counter-attack, for the defence of freedom, collective life, self-organisation and the promotion of solidarity against the world of capital, hatred, individualisation and death, the state, fascism, capitalism and patriarchy. They are a thorn in the side of contemporary totalitarianism and constitute a different way of living, giving an alternative to the present society and anticipating a way of life with dignity in the present and not in some future utopia. At the same time, housing and political squats can and do stand as a barrier against capital and inflation, which increasingly impoverish the social base. Squats provide an alternative to the rising cost of living and basic goods such as health, education, food and housing. They give the impetus against apathy, submission and resignation to the claim of a life with dignity, they are the spaces of empowerment, collectivisation, radicalisation and group coexistence against individualisation and competition. Squats are the way to live today, in the society we want.

Squats, as a tool of struggle, are used when people participating into social, class, student and pupil struggles take decisions to occupy public and private buildings in order to obstruct the circle of capital and raise certain demands, when buildings or public spaces come into the hands of the people in struggler and become spaces for collectivisation, for expression of social needs, they open up to society and give it the opportunity to participate, raise demands and claim a different future and present.

As Libertatia squat, we often talk about opening up and working for social access. About communicating and building relationships with the neighbourhood, participating in the student and class struggles, in the sports stadiums, in neighbourhood assemblies and in contacts with the artistic field. As anarchists we work for the cause of libertarian culture and its diffusion in all the fields in which we participate. We are part of the struggle against all forms of power and we believe that the way to highlight our just struggle is to try to pave the way by moving forward, to give reasons for the people in struggle to stand with us and together to claim a life against war, death, fascism, the state and power.

https://libertatiasquat.blogspot.com

[1] Authorities used this phrase after the walls that were built after the eviction of Biologica were taken down by comrades who used sledgehammers.

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