The occupied neighborhoods of Errekaleor, the Youth Emancipation Networks, the feminist agents in favor of the collision occupation, the fronton Auzolana, Sumendi and Gaztetxea have offered a press conference this Thursday. In recent weeks they have begun to clarify the meaning of the numbers painted on the walls of Vitoria-Gasteiz: each issue is given the corresponding letter in the alphabet, the word “occupation” is completed.

Members of the Lehertu Gasteiz dynamic have provided various data to raise awareness of the right to housing and housing. In Vitoria-Gasteiz there are 115,367 dwellings, of which 9,470 are empty and 2,200 are for sale: one in ten empty dwellings, one in two vitorians. “In the meantime, and despite being in the midst of a pandemic that has put our day to day, evictions, empty houses, price increases, speculation… are continuous.”

In the "excuse" of the crisis, they have denounced that the working class is becoming impoverished, ensuring that as long as capitalism continues to do business with the right to housing, they will defend the occupation. “Occupation is the instrument we have the working classes. A tool that can be used to recover the housing in which we cannot pay (low wages, unemployment, precarious jobs...). Nobody deserves to live on the street. Nobody. And what the institutions do not endorse, we have to guarantee it.”

Criminalisation and aggression

The okupation movements believe that a campaign of criminalization has been launched which is reflected in the tightening of the law or in media campaigns. “They say that we ourselves, the working class, can be victims of the occupation, go out to buy bread and back we can lose the house.”

The attacks against the occupied spaces that the City of Vitoria-Gasteiz and the Municipal Police have carried out since the outbreak of the health crisis – the attempt to close the Gaztetxe, the eviction of the Talka, the evictions…– have also been mentioned. “We are clear that we will defend each space that they attack and that after each eviction will come a new occupation and another, and another...”

Dynamic until May

The six movements have joined in the Lehertu Gasteiz dynamics in order to promote the defense of the occupied spaces and the occupation as a tool of struggle. At the moment, only the demonstration that will put an end to the dynamic, to be held on 15 May, has been announced. They have announced that they have already prepared other initiatives for the step, which will be announced later.