[Noisebridge-discuss] Abbenay Hackerspace - Call for Support

[Jacob Appelbaum]

I recently had the chance to visit this space in Stockholm. These people
are very inline with Noisebridge ideals; they're really making headway
in a culture that isn't as friendly as San Francisco. I voiced my
support for them and I'd advocate that others do the same.

I've often found it sad that San Francisco doesn't have a huge squat
culture but when contrasted with Stockholm, we're squat central!

Sébastien lays it out like so:

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Abbenay Hackerspace - Call for Support
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 10:56:01 +0200
From: Sébastien Bourdeauducq <sebastien.bourdeauducq at lekernel.net>
Organization: lekernel
To: Undisclosed.Recipients:

The Abbenay hacklab [1] opened early this month in Stockholm [2], where a
housing crisis is at full blow.

We are set up in a place that was squatted downtown by Kommando Carl Bildt
since late August, called AK4. The house was empty since June, and there
was
no plans to use it until one year and a half.

Unfortunately, squats are very unusual in Sweden, and the discussions
with the
landlord and the city of Stockholm are extremely difficult, even though
many
newspapers speak positively about AK4. The place currently sets a record
for
the country, with a life time of one month (and counting) while most squats
usually get raided by the police in a few days.

We are however facing an imminent eviction threat and police pressure
has been
significantly increasing lately - with civil cops coming very often to take
pictures of the house and sirens waking us up early in the morning.

This call is asking you to contact the landlord to show support to the
hacklab
and the squat. So far, he has been very closed minded. He only proposed
that
we leave the place and talked about an expensive and abusive rental
contract.
It was about a much smaller office, and according to which we would not be
allowed to sleep in the premises, we would not be allowed to host concerts,
cafes or parties, etc.

The landlord is Fredrik Winberg; he is the CEO of Cementa AB [3], part of
HeidelbergCement Global with a revenue of 15 billion euros per year. He
also
runs the Biteam AB company [4].
We do not believe that he or any of his fellows will turn poor should we
definitely get the house in Stockholm, and we think that his behavior is
basically motivated by the capitalist idea that the right to stay somewhere
must always be paid for.

We hereby ask you to contact him to expose your views on squatting and
hackerspaces in order to give him a more comprehensive view on the subject
than what he could have had as a capitalist entrepreneur. His contact
email is
fredrik.winberg at cementa.se and he can be reached by phone at
+46 (0)708 25 68 04 (NB: this contact information is available from the
WWW).

We do not give a "copy and paste" email to send him, since mail bombing
would
probably not be effective and only increase tensions. Also, please do
not be
aggressive nor engage in any other activity (defacing etc.) which would not
lead anywhere.

You are also most welcome to join the AK4 Squat Support Group on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=146697601021

Thank you,
The Abbenay Hacklab

PS. We are very grateful for any distribution of this call. Print it,
forward
it, post it on your blog, upload it to your favorite social network, etc.

[1] http://www.abbenay.org/
[2] http://lekernel.net/blog/?p=544
[3] http://www.masterclub.se/konsulter.html (Swedish)
[4] http://www.biteam.com/


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