On police raid last night
Last night around 23:30, the anarchist space infiAl in Istanbul was raided for the second time by cops going out for a LBGTİ+ hunt targeting the 24. Pride Week events and using completely made up scenarios of someone having notified the police with suspicions.
The cops, who are leading a violent campaign targeting Pride Week and TransPride and teaming up with fascists to take over streets and even spaces, have come with 2 scorpion type vehicles and around 20 plain clothes officers to intimidate and threaten those planning to join the ‘Self-Defence Against Homo/Transphobic Attacks’ workshop on 20.06.2016 at infiAl. They had come with the intention of searching the space but had to retreat to doing a GBT control because of the reaction they got.
This fascist mentality, that has been patrolling the streets for months and harassing everyone, looking for the first opportunity to criminalise the space and those around it, showing cheap and ungrounded allegations as reasons for their raids, seeing the right to self-defence as a potential threat while we witness trans murders every day on these geographies, is obviously not going to surprise us.
However, infiAl for us is just a ‘space’; today in Tarlabaşı and somewhere else tomorrow, it is not the whole but just a part of the anarchist struggle and social revolution. That is why we support many similar spaces, to oppose our face-to-face relationships being interrupted and disturbed. We always emphasise the importance of such spaces being created for anarchists and anti-authoritarians, not only in cosmopolitan centers of cities but in all localities. Be it a squat, social center or any other format, we stand in solidarity with everyone who tries to raise the anarchist fight and will do all we can to realize such organisations.
At this point, our call out to all comrades; in the face of all the efforts to demotivate us, we will do everything in our hands to defend this space that has an important mission for the anarchist struggle. We will use all our energy to continue holding our events. We have no other choice but to increase the solidarity and strengthen this base that acts as a bridge between not only local but transnational struggles, sharing ideas and experiences. To protect and increase the motivation of the space, we will stand together in the face of attacks by authorities, but we can also increase solidarity and cooperation by psychically engaging in communication with each other and having events (workshops, presentations, discussions, conferences, concerts etc.) that will spread the anarchist struggle.
Solidarity is our strongest weapon!
InfiAl Collective