Repression of Italian autonomous spaces continues, after previous evictions in Milan and Turin
~ Cristina Sykes ~
The L38 Squat, a social space in Rome occupied for 35 years, was evicted Tuesday (28 April). In the early hours of the morning, dozens of officers in riot gear showed up at the building, in the city’s Laurentino working-class neighbourhood, along with workers from Ater, the city’s public housing company. A group of about 15 comrades climbed onto the roof of the building and remained there until early afternoon, while a solidarity protest formed in front of the building.
According to one member, the group “set a condition for coming down from the roof: a house for Susanna, who has been waiting months for temporary housing. Susanna has been homeless since the January fire caused by a short-circuited stove, a fire caused by Ater’s lack of radiator maintenance. Her dog Sissi died in the fire, and she lost everything.” The city provided guarantees for this demand, and the comrades came down from the roof and joined the street protest.
Following the end of the occupation, the crowd continued to express its solidarity at a protest against the war in front of arms company Leonardo S.p.A.’s headquarters and a neighbourhood march against Ater and property speculation.
The eviction is widely seen as part of a directed campaign of repression against the autonomous left and its spaces by Italy’s far right government, and follows the violent closure of prominent squats in Milan and Turin. The eviction had been expected since the start of the year, and a campaign against it has included dawn pickets, benefit initiatives, self-managed workshops, participatory assemblies, and street demonstrations.
Established in 1991, the social centre aimed to “satisfy the need for social interaction of the large youth population that lives (or survives)” in the neighbourhood, in the absence of any free alternatives. The building is divided into four floors (of which only two cover a large area). On the first floor is the entrance, which opens onto a covered concrete courtyard outside the space. On the second floor was the large hall used for concerts, theatre performances and public assemblies, as well as a bar and kitchen. The third floor housed on one side a rehearsal room, HackLab, gym, Infoshop, screen printing shop, herbalist’s shop, and self-managed games room, while the living spaces were on the other side. On the fourth floor was the darkroom and the planetarium.
The company intends to demolish the social and residential space to make way for a 7-million-Euro new development on the premises owned by the Lazio Region. This is while the neighbourhood, according to the L38 assembly, “is full of devastated Ater homes, empty houses, homes in need of maintenance, houses that have caught fire or exploded, and people and animals who die because they have no radiators”.
