geert on Sun, 28 Nov 2004 23:32:03 +0100 (CET) |
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<nettime> (amsterdam) ascii evicted, again |
From: decoy <decoy@lo-res.org> Wednesday 24th of november, at 07:00 in the morning, almost in secret, officers of the police-station s'Graveshandeplein broke open the door of ASCII on the Wibautstraat 7 to evict them. At about 11:00 members of the internet-collective were called by an employee of the district council, to be informed that their space had been evicted and that they can come to retrieve their belongings. As stated previously, in public, ASCII refused to move out voluntarily just like that. The space on the Wibautstraat has been empty for a considerable time, and the council of Oost-Watergraafsmeer obviously incapable of finding a new renter. Even now it is unclear how long the space shall remain empty. Indeed, ASCII understood that there have been negotiations with at least one prospective party. ASCII has stated from the very beginning that they would not resist a new dedication of this space to another purpose than leaving it empty, and that they would be prepared to simply deliver the keys to any successor. ASCII communictaed this clearly at two council-commission meetings and in open letters to the neighbourhood. The fact, that it came down to an eviction by the police, therefore sheds an even more ugly light on the affair when considering the previous course of events: After the occupation, there was an immediate public declaration given to the commission for general affairs of the district council, in which ASCII have made their intentions clear. The initial reaction of the executive council was a postive one. There were even negotiations with comissioner Jelle Prins to reach an agreement until a new use for the space would be found. These negotiations were suddenly terminated when they were still in the middle of their developent. Politicians and district-officials suddenly resorted to all kinds of weak excuses as to why they would rather go the route of eviction after all. At the same time they hypocritically expressed their admiration for the good work of ASCII, and shamelessly tried to pass the buck to the public prosecutor, even though it had been the district-council themselves who had called police and district attourney onto the scene. ASCII has had a good relationship with neighbours from day one. So it was possible that they could learn from the potential new renter, that negotiations between him and the council were running much smoother since ASCII occupied the space. Apparently the officials of the Department of Residence and Labour were stirred from their complacency. Just like any other speculator, the district council now chooses the easy way out by resorting to an eviction of ASCII instead of managing community property in a sensible way - like any decent houseowner would. ASCII are curious, for how long the council thinks they can leave this space empty again, now that it was evicted in this underhanded way during the early morning hours. # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net