Month: April 2026

“In a local and international environment where states, institutions, and people are transforming to cope with a dystopian landscape of crises and globalized conflict, can our societies truly succeed? And if so, how? With which social imaginaries and which social examples?” (Sykapro, 2026).

Right now, as Prosfygika faces another existential threat from the state, the Community resists by any means necessary. Our comrade Aristotelis Chantzis has been on hunger strike – until death – for 75 days now, for the defense of life. A second comrade will begin a hunger strike on May 1st.

There is an urgent need to unify our forces and act now for the defense of the community, locally and globally!

To open the issue to broader society, including perspectives from representatives of the Greek movement, the Community of Squatted Prosfygika will hold an event in Athens on Tuesday, April 21st.

In the invitation is stated:

“The struggle currently being waged by the Community of Squatted Prosfygika, including the hunger strike since 5/2/26 by Aristotelis Chantzis, does not concern only the survival of the community itself and its people. It raises crucial questions about our contemporary world.”

As internationalists who align with the vision the Community of Squatted Prosfygika creates, and who were already prepared to organize its defense in the past weeks, months, and years, we need to escalate our resistance towards the next level.

But why do we need to defend the Community of Squatted Prosfygika?

What does the Community mean for our social struggle locally, and what perspectives can we gain from it?

How can we foster strong movements that form a counter-force to the dominant culture of oppression?

On the event on April 26th, we, as the Internationalist Committee to Save Prosfygika, invite you to discuss these questions and to help define the next steps for how we move forward for the defense of the Community.

The Community of Squatted Prosfygika will present the current situation of the planned attack and the progress of its social self-defense.

The Internationalist Committee will be briefly presented, and we will hear from different organizations around the world about the mutual bonds and visions which already exist.

The link for participation is: https://lecture.senfcall.de/sav-loj-48f-nxo

We encourage all organizations to organize public streaming in their localities.
For the first part of the event, press is invited.

We invite you, whether organizations and individuals, to join our event, mobilize in your localities, and participate in the discussion on how to connect the struggle, strengthen our mutual bonds, and defend Prosfygika.

The world only continues to exist if we share it!
Either we will win or we will win!

Solidarity is our weapon !

For the mobilization of the 5th of April we called our internationalist comrades to participate in solidarity hungerstrikes, organize actions and mobilize for the 5th of April, which supposedly should be both and internationally and panhellenic day of action for the defense of the community oft squatted Prosfygika.

The 5th of April 2026 marked the day where our comrade Aristotelis Chantzis is since 60 days in a hunger strike until death for the defense of life. With this, the necessity becomes bigger to escalate and increase the pressure on the Greek state and the region of Attica and the EU-Commission but it is also a call for us to transform ourselves towards a serious opening to the internationalist and locals spheres, to include everyone who wants to be included and to find the organisation tools and the strength, to put what we wish for into practice.

On that day, the 5th oft April over 2000 people, families, revolutionaries, elderly, teenagers and various internationalist organizations from Turkey, Kurdistan, Sudan and Europe took the streets of Athens center for the defense of the Community of Squatted Prosfygika.

On the internationalist sphere we received solidarity actions in over 30 localities from 4 different continents, some of them were old friends we worked a lot together or had here and there intensivied discussions with each other. Many of the responses though were new connections that found us in the time that is the most challenging for all of us.

In Ankara, revolutionary youth organizations gathered in front of the Greek embassy.
Saturday night our comrades in Berlin took with bengalo and fireworks the streets, while comrades from Leipzig organized a solidarity event. The Kurdish social center in Düren, comrades from Cologne, Freiburg, Copenhagen, Marseilles, Liege, Brussels, Rome, Madrid, Lisbon, Ljubljana and from the squatted community spazio popolare in Torino sent their declarations of solidarity. In Vienna and Belarus the Greek embassy got attacked with colourbombs.

In the weeks emerging into the the 60-days hungerstrike, comrades from Rome, Scotland, Serbia, Augsburg, the US and Berlin participated in symbolic hunger strikes. Multiple statements of solidarity reached the community from the US, the polish-belarussian border and Rojava and many more places.

We want to share also parts of the statement Subcommandante Marcos from the Zapatistas put in a speech from (date) in which he is referring to the Community of Squatted Prosfygika.

“Comrades, don ´t worry about your size, your numbers, your mediatic impact, but about your convictions (…). Because there are a lot of ones who are just passing by and only the ones that have very clear the why (meaning there history), the what for (meaning their objective and the how (meaning their organizational way) are the are the ones that (…) don’t give up (…) and abandon their ideals (…). And the struggle will continue, and in Palestine they will continue resisting, and in the rebel Greece in the community of Prosfygika defending their struggle for life; and they will do the same in Israel, and in Kurdistan (…) and they will keep struggling in the Europe that don ´t have black outs, and in the forgotten Africa, and in the Oceania from down and to the left, and in the Asian continent with all its differences, and the Mapuche people will also do, and all the Native Peoples in the world, and with them we will shout MARICHIWEYU (Mapuche word that means TEN TIMES WE WILL WIN), because ten, hundred, thousand times we will win, because we will rebel, we will resist, we will not give up, we will organise, and the life would be our horizon, our step and our warm destiny.”

And everyone would call themselves however they want to, and would have their own word, their own ways, their calendars, their geography, and would celebrate their differences dancing and singing on top of the ashes of a system that brought nothing but death and destruction, because the biggest Gods, the ones from first, the ones that created the worlds, they planted the hearts of men and women, and the ones that are not this not that, one seed that must be worked upon to give fruit and that is called freedom.”

-Capitan Insurgente Marcos (San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, 04/04/2026

Those statements, letters, actions and events from the internationalist commune proved the existence of the broad and determined network of solidarity committed to defending the Community of Squatted Prosfygika. It shows that this network is based on a common struggle, a common struggle in which an attack on one part will be an attack to all of us.

It stands for a commitment for a liberated life and society, for an alliance among opressed people internationally and comradeship, as a trusting bond that organizes our internationalist solidarity no matter how and from where we are fighting ✊✊✊

EITHER WE WIN OR WE WILL WIN

We are in another week full of events, protest, assemblies and festivities. On sunday will also happen a big easter celbration.

Come to visit and get to know the Community of Squatted Prosfygika in Alexandras Avenue.
You can also find us daily in the hungerstrike support tent between 9.00-14.30 as well as 5.30-8.30!

• Tuesday 07.04.:
  • 18:30: Solidarity Assembly for Prisoners, Fugitives and persecuted Comrades
• Wednesday 08.04.:
  • 16:00: Collective care and cleaning of the space of the Children and Self-education structure
  • 18:00-19:00: Open contemporary dance lesson for women and femininities
  • 19:00: Open anti-zionist Assembly
  • 19:00: Open Assembly against educational restructuring and the repression in univerities
• Thursday 09.04.:
  • 18:30: Solidarity Assembly for the squatters of the koukaki community
  • 19:00: Open collective Cafe
  • 20:30: Documentary screening: “Caesar must die”
• Friday 10.04:
  • 18:00-19:00: Open contemporary dance lesson for women and femininities
• Saturday 11.04.:
  • 19:00: Open collective Cafe
  • Children Programm: 19:00: Kids Cinema: Nikostratos, le pelican
• Sunday 12.04:
  • 17:00: Glenti at Kioski for the Easter festivity

#saveprosfygika

International solidarity actions took place in defense of the self-managed Prosfygika neighborhood.

ATHENS, Greece — April 5, 2026

An unlimited hunger strike in Athens has ended its second month as protesters oppose plans to evict around 400 people from the self-managed Squatted Community of Prosfygika in the city center.

“Hunger Strike Until Death, For The Defense of Life”

On February 5, Aristotelis Chantzis, a resident and member of the Prosfygika Community, began a hunger strike which, he has stated, will continue if necessary to the point of death. April 5th marks the 60th day of his strike. As the situation reaches a critical phase, which culminated on Friday by his fainting outside of the Ampelokipi police station, masses of people from all social classes and ages in Athens took the streets in a planned demonstration this afternoon in support of Chantzis and in defense of the Community. Followed by months of protests different actions emerged panhellenically and internationally in over 29 cities in Mexico, Columbia, Rojava, Turkey, the US, Italy, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Serbia, Denmark, Germany, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Ireland. Under the hashtag #saveprosfygika, people are announcing weekly their intent to join solidarity hunger strikes in support of Chantzis’ demands in defense of the Community of Squatted Prosfygika.

Summary/Top Lines

The hunger strike and related protests come in response to a plan by the regional government of Attica to evacuate and renovate the buildings of the neighborhood. The project implies the imminent eviction of the approximately four hundred residents of the Community who have lived there for decades with their families.

In June 2025, the Regional Government of Attica, which the city of Athens belongs, approved a programmatic contract for the “renovation” and evacuation of the Community of Squatted Prosfygika. The planned renovation is to be funded by the European Commission at an estimated total cost of 15 million euros. Concrete proposals for the housing of hundreds of members of the Community, including children, patients and relatives from the adjacent oncology hospital and other highly vulnerable groups, have not followed.

Despite being branded as a social housing project, the contract has been widely criticized over this lack of proposal, raising increasing doubts over the wider gentrification process of the wider neighbourhood, and Greece’s capital as a whole.

Key Demands

Chantzis has put forward three key demands in his hunger strike:

• Immediate cancellation of the contract by the region of Attica

• The right of all residents of Prosfygika to remain in their homes

• The right to carry out restoration of the Community in a self-organized way

The Community states that it has maintained the buildings for years and announced a self- organized restoration plan last summer to be financed by its own resources rather than public funds.

Deteriorating Health Conditions

Aristotelis Chantzis is being monitored daily by a Team of Solidarian Doctors and the Health Structure of the Community of Squatted Prosfygika. In a collective statement published on 29.03.2026, they report that his condition is now critical after nearly 60 days without food. He is experiencing severe weakness, dizziness when standing, and heart-related issues, with medical tests showing abnormalities that could lead to dangerous or even fatal heart rhythm problems. Each day that his hunger strike continues, the risks to his heart and overall health increase, with potentially life-threatening implications.

On April 3 and on his 58th day of hunger strike, Aristotelis fainted outside of the Ampelokipi police station, where he needed to go for his monthly signature, a penalty he got for attending a demonstration in solidarity with Palestine. His senses returned and he was taken by ambulance to Gennimatas Hospital, before returning to the Community.

Chantzis says that he is aware of the serious health risks of the hunger strike, including the possibility of sudden cardiac arrest from the beginning. He also acknowledges that even if the strike succeeds, prolonged starvation can cause permanent damage to his body, especially to his nervous system, including during recovery.

Quotes

“Of course, I am aware that I may experience health complications from the first days and throughout the strike, not so much from starvation but from cardiac arrest. I also know that even if the outcome is successful, chronic starvation can cause irreparable damage, mainly to my nervous system, even during the recovery period.”
-Aristotelis Chantzis, on Hunger Strike since 5 February

“On the verge of its sixtieth day, his health has reached a critical phase. He has been experiencing progressively worsening episodes of orthostatic hypotension, weakness with fatigue and tachycardia upon standing, while daily electrocardiograms reveal persistent abnormalities that predispose to potentially fatal arrhythmia’s. Every day the hunger striker faces an ever-increasing cardiovascular and metabolic risk with potentially life-threatening complications.”
-Team of Solidarian Doctors for Aristotelis Chantzis

“We know that if Prosfygika is evacuated, a lot of us will end up on the streets”
-Aristotelis Chantzis

A new Telegram channel was opened to inform about the situation in the Community of Squatted Prosfygika.
There will be daily updates and a weekly voice note to keep you informed.
Join here!

Our common language is resistance!
Either we will win or we will win!