[kraken] Dutch squatters facing eviction in anti-liberal backlash

Auteur: Steff de Kraker <steff@squat.net>
Datum: 14 jan 2007 10:00 uur

Dutch squatters facing eviction in anti-liberal backlash

Jason Burke in Amsterdam
Sunday January 14, 2007
The Observer

Marc steps outside the squat and hunches his shoulders against the rain
blasted down the narrow street by the North Sea wind. A group of Russian
tourists stops in front of him and the graffiti-daubed front of the
five-floor townhouse on Amsterdam's central Spuistraat. The tourists
want their photograph taken next to the striking 6ft 6in squatter.

'The house is a monument,' said Marc, 34, a musician and part-time
film-maker. But if right-wing politicians have their way, it will not be
for much longer. Holland is in turmoil after an inconclusive election in
November and, if the conservatives bolster their hold on government
through a new coalition, squatting is likely to be made illegal. 'We
have to wait and see, but it doesn't look good,' said Lotte, 25, a
squatter 'by political choice' who works in a bookshop. 'There are
people who are very keen to push the law through, and it won't be hard
for them to do so.'

Article continues
Squatting, for so long a feature of cities proud of their
'ultra-tolerant' reputation, is one of several key symbols of urban
Dutch liberalism to come under attack in recent years. There have been
moves to reduce the size of Amsterdam's extensive red-light district.
Famously lax drugs laws have been tightened. A generous immigration
policy has been the centre of fierce debate and criticism. 'It is all a
symptom of a general movement back towards law and order in Dutch
society and politics,' said Bas Heijne, a respected Dutch commentator.
'It is a trend towards certainty and away from pragmatic compromise and
tolerance.'

The new law, which has already been passed as a parliamentary motion,
will make almost all squatting illegal. At present squatters just need
to install a bed, a chair and a table in a property that has been vacant
for more than a year and call the police to make an official
declaration. It is then up to the landlord to get them out; a long,
difficult and costly process. This has led to a recent boom in another
activity that will be hit by the new law - 'anti-squatting'.

Joost Koenders, director of the nationwide anti-squatting agency
Anti-Kraak, has more than 400 properties on his books. The tenants are
people who need cheap housing, have no deposit and do not mind the fact
that they can be given two weeks' notice to leave. The landlords want
their property occupied so that it can't be squatted legally. 'It's
straight supply and demand, 100 per cent free- market,' Koenders explained.

One such tenant is Denis, 27, a market trader who is paying around ¤100
a month to share with five other tenants a 24,000 sq m office block that
is scheduled for demolition. 'It's OK,' he said. 'It is better than
nothing.'

Critics of anti-squatting, which is set to come to the UK with the
expansion of Dutch companies to London, say it is 'exploitative'. 'It
neither eases Amsterdam's chronic housing shortage nor usefully employs
some of the city's huge number of empty properties,' said one
campaigner. Critics also point out that anti-squatters miss out on the
cultural scene that goes with long-established squats, many of which run
cafes, workshops, theatre groups, discussion forums and even newspapers.

As coalition talks continued last week, Holland's estimated 50,000
squatters remained defiant. On a battered house near Amsterdam's central
station, squatters recently thrown out by police have slung a banner:
'You can't evict an idea.'

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ontvangsttijd Sun Jan 14 09:01:04 2007