April starts with another week full of events, assemblies, protest and action in the Community of Squatted Prosfygika.
Tuesday, March 31 6:30 PM: Assembly in solidarity with the prisoners, fugitives, and persecuted militant comrades
6:30 PM: Open assembly regarding the case of the torture of V. Mangos
Wednesday, April 1 6:00–7:00 PM Open contemporary dance class for femininities
7:00 PM Open Anti-Zionist Assembly
7:00 PM Open assembly against educational restructuring and repression at universities
Thursday, April 2 6:30 p.m. Solidarity Assembly in support of the squatters of the Koukaki community
7:00 PM Event – Discussion by Global Sumud Flotilla, Freedom Flotilla Coalition, and Thousand Madleens to Gaza: “From Gaza to Havana, We Set Sail Against the Empire” & Open Collectivist Café
Friday, April 3 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM Open contemporary dance class for femininities
Saturday, April 4 8:00 PM Rebetiko party with “Laiki Orgi” Krater: a dance relay, where a performer takes turns with a dancer continuously for several hours in front of the 1st block
Sunday, April 5 1:00 PM Solidarity demonstration in support of the refugee camps (meeting point: Propylaea). Greek national and international day of action
4:00 PM Collective Kitchen & Open Collective Café
5:00 PM Open Solidarity Assembly of the community of squatted Prosfygika
9:00 PM Live at the Collective Café: “The Community Sings!”
PROGRAM FOR CHILDREN Friday, April 3 6:00 PM Introductory workshop on microorganisms & games
In June 2025 the Regional Government of Attica (which Athens belongs to) approved a programmatic contract for the “renovation” and the evacuation of the Community of Squatted Prosfygika, where more than 400 people live. 53 days ago, on February 5th, our comrade Aristotelis Chantzis started a hunger strike until death for the defense of the Community, for the defense of life. Soon in the next weeks, a second comrade will follow and start a hunger strike. Several weeks of actions in Athens and internationally have passed. The opening of the Community to the broader society, in Greece and internationally, is to build toward its social self-defense. This opening includes a full events program, a weekly open assembly, guest houses for cancer patients of the nearby Agios Savas hospital, and construction works to renovate houses, create more hospital guest housing, and the construction of the civil war museum. Hundreds of internationalists, solidarians and locals answered the call to come to the community and support the work for its defense.
On March 14th, thousands of people took in Athens the street for the defense of Prosfygika. Solidarity actions also took place in Poland, Serbia, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Colombia.
Although large parts of the movement and the society have been mobilized, the Greek state and the regional government of Attica remain silent and haven’t canceled their ongoing plan. This puts the life of our comrade Aristotelis Chantzis in danger, together with the lives of so many members of the Community who will face extreme life-threatening conditions without the support of the Community and its 22 self-organized social structures.
In Athens we are mobilizing for a central demonstration on the 5th of April. Internationally, we call all people who are for the defense of life to initiate or participate in solidarity actions to promote the panhellenic and international actions on the this same day, in solidarity with the Community of Squatted Prosfygika.
The neighborhood of the Squatted Prosfygika on Alexandras Avenue, we started to inhabit autonomous squats from different political and cultural backgrounds as early as the 2000s, shortly after the state forcibly expelled terrorists by expropriating and demolishing 177 out of 228 apartment owners in the Prosfygika residences. In 2010, the residents of the squatted Prosfygika decided to come together as a collective. This was a time following the 2008 uprising, when numerous projects were being created, squats were succeeding each other as centers of struggle, and collectivization seemed like a natural step.
Mafias were subleasing the houses, trafficking and producing narcotics, defiling the neighborhood, and the police were in and out daily to take their share of the profits. This initial condition triggered our reaction, along with the impending repression we knew the state would unleash to gain control of the houses, as it is prime real estate in the city center. We realized that in order to survive, we needed to unite and collectivize. We envisioned a community where people live together, houses are communal and belong to no one, decisions are made collectively, members support each other, and we fight together on a common path, struggling for our lives.
We imagined an autonomous community where we can sustain ourselves by producing food and maintaining the houses and neighborhood collectively. Our children would self-educate within the community, without needing schools like the ones outside with all their problems. A community where there is no violence among us, and our issues are resolved on different terms, terms based on inclusion, horizontality, and acceptance. We imagined many things and we decided to turn our fantasies into reality.
But how do you turn imagination into reality? How does the fantastic become realistic? The answers are not easy because it requires a counterproposal to the existing system. However, self-organization naturally finds its way, and so the answers constantly revolved around the words “structures” and “infrastructures.”
Our initial thought was about bread. Food that represents humanity and all its differences. Every corner of the world has its unique culture and history, just like bread. We could tell our own story by making our own bread, initially covering the community’s needs and eventually generating income. So, a bakery structure was the first to be established within the squatted Prosfygika neighborhood, shortly after the formation of the organized assembly, “Sy.Ka.Pro.” (Squatted Prosfygika Assembly) in 2012.
The bakery structure started in 2013[1]. Over the years, we realized that the breadmaking process was much more than what we initially perceived. There’s a dynamic that maintains cohesion within the community, brings old and new comrades together in kneading and during difficult times in the community after repression operations. It manages to give us the strength and perspective we need to continue the struggle, making us resist with determination when barbarism threatens to overwhelm us.
Today, the bakery structure operates daily, producing various types of bread and has expanded distribution points beyond the neighborhood. It serves as a reference point for the community, and the process of hands working together to create a common dough, beyond its practical aspect, holds a strong symbolism for what communal life is and how people mold themselves in collective processes.
Welcome to the health structure of the community of squatted Prosfygika. Existing since the beginning of the community – evolving ever since in a collective process. It’s able to take care of the needs of the community and furthermore of the neighborhood. In contrast to the states healthcare system it’s centering the social, mental and physical needs of each one. Continuously working against racist and sexist discrimination regarding healthcare. #saveprosfygika
Another week full of events, cultural happenings, assemblies, and all-day activities in the Community of Squatted Prosfygika!
Tuesday, 24/3:
18:30 Open assembly for the case of torture of V. Maggos at Steki
18:30 Solidarity assembly for imprisoned, fugitive, and persecuted militants at the Social Center
Wednesday, 25/3:
18:00-19:00: Open class of contemporary dance and improvisation for women & femininities at the Women’s Structure
19:00: Open Anti-Zionist Assembly at the Social Center
19:00: Open assembly against educational restructuring and repression at universities at Steki
Thursday, 26/3:
18:30 Solidarity Assembly for the squatters of the Koukaki Community at the Social Center
18:30 Participatory theater (based on two plays written for the Community of Squatted Prosfygika) in the Square of Prosfygika
19:00 Open collective café at Kioski
19:00 Motorcycle demonstration for the propaganda of the Panhellenic and international mobilization for the Community of Squatted Prosfygika on April 5. Starting point: Prosfygika
20:30 Screening of the documentary “Sudan, remember us” at Kioski
Friday, 27/3:
17:00-18:00: Open contemporary dance and improvisation class for women & femininities at the Women’s Structure
18:30: As part of the International Days of Action for Housing: Gathering in Prosfygika and open discussion (1st block & Square of Prosfygika)
Saturday, 28/3:
14:00: Open Afro-Brazilian dance class in the Square of Prosfygika
“Birds Always Defend Their Nests” by the Open Antispeciesist Assembly:
16:00 Bicycle maintenance and repair workshop. Construction workshop
18:00 Birdwatching walk: We listen to the sounds of wild and caged birds in the city
19:00 Event – discussion & Open Collective Café
20:30 Performances in front of 1st Block
Sunday, 29/3
18:00: Open Assembly of the Solidarity Fund for Imprisoned and Persecuted Militants at the Social Center
16:00: Collective Kitchen & Open Collective Café (Kioski)
17:00: Open Solidarity Assembly with the Community of Squatted Prosfygika at the Kioski
Sunday, 29/3: childern program:
12:00-13:30: Capoeira class for children at the Children Structure
15:00: Workshop by the Children, Animal, and Bakery structure “Making treats for the animals in our neighborhood” at the “Berkin Elvan” Bakery
19:30: Open Assembly of the Children Structure of the Community Of Squatted Prosfygika at the Square
The Community of Squatted Prosfygika is one of the biggest self-organized and liberated neighborhoods in Europe, existing since 16 years. Home to 400 inhabitants from 27 different countries, it has succeeded in building a politically united neighborhood with over twenty autonomous structures answering the needs of its inhabitants, as well as an active participation in broader political and social movements.
While the autonomy keeps growing stronger and stronger, so is the repression: Prosfygika is currently facing urgent attacks and threat of eviction by the local government, financed by European Union funds. These plans of gentrification are set to start by July 2026.
Thus, Prosfygika now, more than ever before, decided to open the community, exposing every lie of the State, which claims to “build” something it will never do, something that is already here organized from the below: social housing, children’s and health structures, a bakery, and guesthouses for patients of the nearby oncological hospital and their relatives.
The struggle for creating this autonomy is from the beginning a struggle based on internationalist solidarity, as it learned from the guerilla in the mountains of Kurdistan and from struggles in dozens of other geographies — because the struggle for liberation was, is and will be a global one!
To renovate, build and to struggle together we call for all organizations, collectives and people of solidarity to organize internationalist brigades to come and support us!
If you are:
– crafters of any branch
– medical personnel
– political or revolutionary organizations and individuals
Open assembly on the case of the torture of V. Maggos – 18:00
Assembly of solidarity with imprisoned, fugitive, and persecuted militants/activists – 18:30
Wednesday, March 18
“To Peridromio in Prosfygika”: Collective participatory workshop with the groups LUDD & ACAN – 11:00
Theatre workshop with “Afantoi” – 15:00–17:00
Open class in contemporary dance and improvisation for women and femininities – 18:00–19:00
Open assembly against educational restructuring and repression in universities – 19:00
Open Anti-Zionist Assembly – 19:00
Thursday, March 19
Assembly of solidarity with the squats of the Koukaki Community – 18:30
Open event by KEERFA: “Solidarity and struggle for a world without racism, poverty, and war” – 18:30
Open Collective Café from 19:00
Screening of the documentary “Favela, okupa community, commune” – 20:30
Friday, March 20
Open contemporary dance and improvisation class for women and femininities at the women’s structure – 17:00–18:00
Celebration of Newroz (the Kurdish New Year and Spring) and of the resistance of the Kurdish people – 20:00
Saturday, March 21
Children’s workshop for the International Day Against Racism, organized by the Children’s Spaces of Prosfygika & Notara 26 – 12:00 *Eid Mubarak celebration (end of Ramadan) – 14.00
Utopian reading circle: “Urbanization without Cities” – 17:00
Open Collective Café & celebration with Laïki Orgi to support legal expenses for those arrested during the 2020 march at the Acropolis – from 19:00
Sunday, March 22
Children’s book presentation with Nikoleta Tripsa: “MITZOU, A PROMISING LITTLE FISH” – 12:00
Building planters & planting at the Children’s Space – 14:00
Open Collective Café & Collective Kitchen – from 16:00
Open Assembly of Solidarity with the Community of Squatted Prosfygika – 17:00
Presentation by Giannis Tombros of his haiku poetry collection “There Are Certainly Moments, Arrhythmic” & open poetry reading for World Poetry Day (21/3) – 19:00
This article was written by the hunger-striking comrade Aristotelis Xantzis. We release this translation on his 30thday of indefinite hunger strike to death in defense of life to prevent the eviction of the Community of Squatted Prosfygika.
The photographs of the 200 executed men of Kaisariani on May Day 1944 emerge perhaps at the most appropriate moment, as we are reminded that those who took the path of resistance did not think of the cost and looked death in the face with a raised fist. After 84 years [sic], they are a breath of life, a source of inspiration and struggle for the new generations.
In these photographs it is not only these unyielding fighters who are depicted, but sketched in their implacability is all of the resistance to the brutality of the Haydari, Merlin, and Akronafplia camps, as well as of so many other hells.
Every one of the 200, just like so many still-“unknown soldiers” —because they were, are, and will be the true unknown soldiers who gave their lives against the occupiers— had a name, a story, ideals. They were workers, trade-unionists, members of the KKE [Communist Party of Greece], Trotskyists, Archeio-Marxists. The majority of them were handed over from the Metaxas regime to the occupying powers, having been condemned under Venizelos’s Idionymon1, which was maintained and reinforced by Metaxas by replacing it with the so-called “emergency law”.
The declaration of these historic photographs to be a “monument” is not simple hypocrisy of the Ministry of Culture, but rather shows the meaning that the current government ascribes to “monuments”. For the government which gives land water and land to American interests and to the oligarchs, which prepares the modern Akronafplia camps in the form of eight new prisons, which is to blame for the deaths of hundreds of refugees and immigrants, which threatens independent journalism, which paves the way for new Idionyma with anti-communist korones2, “monument” means distortion of the history of the resistance.
For the government of the New Penal Code, of the executive state, of PREDATOR3, of OPEKEPE4, of Tempi,5 of the extreme repression, which gave the Byzantine Museum to the Glücksberg family for a dinner party; for the government of the vile shamelessness which grips the ruling class, “monument” means oblivion in the historical memory.
For the government of the political progeny of the Nazi collaborators and of the Tagmata Asfaleias6, is it possible to respect this historical memory?
Today, the same government is trying to constrain the Community of Squatted Prosfygika of Alexandras Avenue, with the pretext of the creation of social housing and hosting structures for companions of the Agios Savvas cancer hospital. The Prosfygika buildings on Alexandras Ave., a remaining monument of contemporary history because of the marks of bullets and mortar shells from the battles of the Dekemvriana7, are threatened to be plundered in the name of gentrification of the broader Ampelokipoi area. Along with them, the plunder of historical memory as well as the continuity of the resistance.
But what is the Community of Squatted Prosfygika? What does it represent? Why is it such a great danger for the Mitsotakis government? What are the stakes?
In these 16 years of its operation, the Community of Prosfygika has reinforced the participation of individuals in shared issues through direct-democratic processes in regular assemblies, plenary conferences, and a plethora of social solidarity structures. Structures for housing, for food, for health, for education and childcare. Structures for hosting cancer patients who are hospitalized at the Agios Savvas cancer hospital along with their companions. Structures for women’s empowerment, culture, art, technical support for occupants, and many others.
Just as in the period of the occupation, until the end of the Dekemvriana, the “National Solidarity” organization was the one that organized bread lines, built daycares, pharmacies, clinics, hospitals, and houses, while the political ancestors of the contemporary elite lined up with the [Axis] occupiers; so today, the structures that suffer the most severe criminalization and repression are those which really try to solve the social problems that the elite has created.
Just as after the Dekemvriana they closed and demolished with explosives the offices of “National Solidarity”, arrested and imprisoned its officials, destroyed and looted its structures; so today in the same way they make attempts at the social solidarity structures. This is the main reason for the attacks by the Mitsotakis government on the Community of Prosfygika.
Prosfygika is not a monument only because it is marked by the English bullets and mortar shells that butchered the Athenian people. Prosfygika was the place where, hidden away, the resistance forces set their ambush of the Ethnofylaki [“national guard”] whο were on their way to free the collaborators in the Averof prisons8. It was the passage used for the destruction of the warehouses in the English barracks. It was a disputed territory between opposing forces. It was another place of uprooted refugees that formed the backbone of the resistance.
Today, the members of the Community of Squatted Prosfygika are under constant attack because of their participation in social resistances, in the Tempi movement, in marches in solidarity with the Palestinian people, in mobilizations on the 6th of December and 17th of November9, because of their social proposal and actions against the policies of barbarity.
If we accepted that the Prosfygika buildings are merely a “monument,” empty of content, that the 200 of Kaisariani are merely a “monument” as defined by the Ministry of Culture, it would be like spitting on the monuments and memorials of those who resisted. It would be like spitting in the face of the downtrodden sectors of society who groan from the anti-social policies of those in power.
It is our duty to continue to exist so that we can strengthen and broaden the world of community, social self-organization, and solidarity in the face of policies of obscurantism, corruption, and repression.
In the face of the political descendants of the collaborators and the Tagmata Asfaleias, we honor the 200 people executed in Kaisariani on May Day 1944. We honor the historical memory of Prosfygika, certain that we are on the right path.
1[The term idionymo in Greek refers to a specific kind of law. However, the Idionymon of Venezelis refers to a law proposed by the liberal-democrat Eleftherios Venizelos in 1929, also known as Law 4229.In an article on Unicorn Riot, Nikos Georgiades cites Neni Panourgiá’s Dangerous Citizens: “the Idionymon ‘decreed that those ideas that have at their basis the violent overturn of the political system constitute a danger’ and that this also applied to ‘nonviolent means, such as the development, dissemination, and application of theories and ideas’.”]
2[Singular korona, in music it is when a singer holds on a single note for a long time, often at the end of a phrase. Metaphorically, here Aristotelis suggests emphasis and perhaps ultimate intent.]
3[Predator is a spyware developed by Cytrox, a malware/digital surveillance company with ties to the Israeli Occupation Forces. This program has been used in recent years to spy on Greek journalists and the leader of PASOK, Greece’s socialist opposition party.]
4[OPEKEPE is a Greek government agency that handles distribution of certain funds among other things. Specifically, it oversaw the distribution of European farming subsidies within Greece. In May 2025 it was revealed that OPEKEPE had paid these funds out in “subsidies for nonexistent sheep and goats on the island of Crete and banana plantations on Mount Olympus”. See: https://www.dw.com/en/greek-government-in-crisis-after-eu-subsidy-scandal/a-73095982]
5[On February 28, 2023, a passenger train and a freight train collided head on at Tempi, in central Greece. Fifty-seven people were killed in the crash, and in an audio recording that came out afterward, a person can be heard yelling “I don’t have oxygen!”. This, along with the fireball created by the crash and evidence at the scene later, has led Vassilis Kokotsakis, the expert on the side of the families seeking justice, to conclude that the explosion and asphyxiation resulted from chemicals carried illegally on the freight train. The anniversaries of this tragedy have brought tens to hundreds of thousands to the streets of Athens.]
7[The “Events of December” in 1944. Germany had withdrawn from Greece in October of that year, which brought the the fore tensions between forces that had been resisting the occupation. On December 1, the British Lieutenant-general Ronald Scobie ordered the communist EAM-ELAS to disarm. A demonstration was called against this order, and the Greek police and gendarmes fired into the crowd, killing 28 and wounding 148. This led to armed confrontations throughout December, between the EAM-ELAS on one side and the Greek police and British armed forces on the other.]
8[The prisons at Averof were located at the present site of the Supreme Court of Athens, which is right next to Prosfygika, on the same side of Alexandras Ave.]
9[December 6, 2008: the date on which 15-year-old anarchist Alexis Grigoropoulos was killed by the pig Korkoneas in the Exarcheia neighborhood of Athens. November 17, 1973: the date of the uprising against the military junta at Athens Polytechnic.]
Today, on March 11, the Hungerstrike of Aristotelis Chantzis has reached day 35.
The different works in the Community of Squatted Prosfygika are continuing to develop.
Today we also commemorate Berkin Elvan, a Kurdish revolutionary who was murdered in 2018 in the age of 15 by the Turkish Police while he went to buy bread. The collective bakery of Prosfygika is named after him.
Interview with two Members of the Community of Squatted Prosfygika, Greece’s largest squat and a political project that has been ongoing for 16 years. Around 400 people live in the community and experiment with new structures of cohabitation.
The Community is highly influenced by the Kurdish movement and its concept of Democratic Confederalism. It provides insights into how self-organization and the establishment of autonomous structures within a capitalist society can be possible and what problems such a project faces.
Who has been on a hunger strike since February 5th, 2026 (Day 30).
During the physical examination, intensifying signs of orthostatic hypotension and tachycardia upon rising are observed.
The hunger striker has lost a total of 15.5% of his initial body weight. Blood tests indicate low serum urea levels and reversible hypoglycemic episodes accompanied by numbness in the upper limbs. These findings are consistent with starvation.
It is clear that hunger striker A. Chantzis, now on the 30th day of his hunger strike, faces a risk of serious complications as he is in a state of prolonged fasting. He presents increasing cardiovascular and metabolic risks and faces an escalating danger of complications and arrhythmia’s.
His demands express the collective demands of the Community of Squatted Prosfygika at Av. Alexandras and are as follows:
IMMEDIATE CANCELLATION OF THE CONTRACT FOR THE “REDEVELOPMENT” OF THE PROSFYGIKA BUILDINGS BY THE REGIONAL GOVERNMENT OF ATTICA, AND OF THE PLANNING FOR THE SUPPRESSION AND EVACUATION OF THE COMMUNITY OF SQUATTED PROSFYGIKA.
THAT ALL RESIDENTS OF PROSFYGIKA REMAIN IN THEIR HOMES, IN THE PLACE AND THE AREA WHERE THEY LIVE AND HAVE CONNECTED SOCIALLY, CULTURALLY, AND ORGANICALLY.
THAT TANGIBLE GUARANTEES BE GIVEN FOR THE RESTORATION OF TPROSFYGIKA BY THE NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION (NPO) “RESIDENTS AND FRIENDS OF PROSFYGIKA AV. ALEXANDRAS REFUGEE HOUSING NPO” WITH ITS OWN FUNDING! – NOT A SINGLE EURO OF PUBLIC MONEY FOR THE “REDEVELOPMENT” OF PROSFYGIKA!
Hunger striker A. Chantzis declares that he does not intend to stop his abstention from food until the above demands are met. It is the responsibility of the competent authorities to immediately satisfy these demands, given the continuously deteriorating health of the hunger striker.
Solidarity Medical Team Health Structure of the Community of Squatted Prosfygika at Av. Alexandras
On 14th of March, the Community or Squatted Prosfygika is calling to the streets of Athens for a massive demonstration in solidarity with its struggle against the state plans of plundering and eviction.
In this spirit of resistance we call for everyone to engage in actions of solidarity on the same day, to show the Greek state and Europe that this is our common struggle and we will win! Long live internationalist solidarity!
We call on you to organize gatherings, posterings, solidarity events or to get creative. If you do something, please take photos and videos, upload them on Instagram with us as collaborator and send them to us
