No Borders. Fundraiser for No borders protesters facing potential jail or house arrest on December 16th trial

By: börek - December 11th, 2025  Filed under: Benefiet, Volkseten/Voku

Monday December 15, 2025, No Borders. Fundraiser for No borders protesters facing potential jail or house arrest on December 16th trial. Food served from 7pm, no reservation.

Our comrade has been convicted to four years in prison in association with a protest against a border wall between Italy and Austria in 2016. The aim of the project was to block the migrant routes from Italy, another attempt at building Fortress Europe. The project fell through and the wall was never built, but over 60 people have been convicted. The charges were devastation, looting, aggravated resistance and damage. After the first round of appeal — enabled by your support back in February — the most serious charges were dropped and the maximum sentence was reduced from ten years to four. The 16 of December is the final round of court to decide if to give them house arrest. If you can donate, please do so here. All funds will go to the legal defense. On the 7 May 2016, at the Brenner Pass, hundreds of No Borders demonstrators protested against the Austrian state’s migration policy. At that time, the Austrian government had announced plans for tighter border controls, to restrict access through the Alpine crossing and to build a fence to prevent a new influx of refugees arriving from Italy.
We stand in solidarity with our comrades who: campaign against borders everyday, fight for freedom of movement, fight fascism and repression, oppose police violence. It is our duty to fight for freedom and it is our duty to win. […Lees verder]

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Actual Tea Party and Letters to Prisoners Writing Session

By: börek - December 5th, 2025  Filed under: Infocafe

Wednesday December 10, 2025, Actual Tea Party and Letters to Prisoners Writing Session, 16:00 – 19:00

Let’s gather around a teacup and delicious cookies to write letters to prisoners!
Repression in Italy is becoming increasingly harsher due to a new ridiculous “security law” approved last June. In recent months, numerous comrades have been arrested and detained under illegal conditions, in an attempt to isolate them from their community and to scare those who fight against repressive laws and big infrastructures (especially under attack is the struggle against the building of what would be longest suspension bridge in the world connecting Calabria to Sicily?! – as our just dearly departed national icon singer Ornella Vanoni said (at 91yo): truly who the fuck cares).
We are organising this meeting to show them our solidarity through letters.
— If you have contacts with prisoners who would like to receive letters, we invite you to come and we will write letters for them too! <33333
Snacks will be on donation basis and the profits will go towards covering the legal costs of those detained following the protests against the construction of the Calabria-Sicily bridge.

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Voku to support No Borders comrade facing jail in Italy

By: börek - December 1st, 2025  Filed under: Benefiet, Volkseten/Voku

Thursday December 4, 2025, Voku to support No Borders comrade facing jail in Italy. Food served from 7pm, no reservation.

Come to Joe’s Garage on Thursday 4 for a Voku! It is warm and gezellig. Vegan meal with soup, main dish and dessert. Raising funds for a comrade on trial in Italy for No Borders activism. Facing a heavy sentence, he is currently on drastic bail conditions that ban him from earning a living. We want to give him financial support so he can focus on his court case – and feel our solidarity! […Lees verder]

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Voku to help cover the medical expenses of an injured comrade

By: börek - November 17th, 2025  Filed under: Benefiet, Volkseten/Voku

Monday November 17, 2025, Voku to help cover the medical expenses of an injured comrade. Food served from 7pm, no reservation.

This benefit is for a dear comrade, who is having severe medical consequences due to the actions of the cops during pro Pal demostrations in Italy. She is going through several surgeries, and is not able to work. We are raising money to help with her medical and legal expenses.
[…Lees verder]

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Bella Ciao dinner & party, live music, antifascist karaoke

By: börek - April 20th, 2025  Filed under: Benefiet, Muziek, Volkseten/Voku

Friday April 25, 2025, Bella Ciao dinner & party. Let’s celebrate Italy’s Liberation day together. Door opens at 16:00, food served from 19:00.

April 25th marks Italy’s National Liberation Day, a celebration of the country’s freedom from the nazi-fascist occupation.
80 years ago, on this very day, the partisans of the Italian Resistance regained control of Northern Italy, bringing an end to twenty years of fascist oppression and five years of war.
For two years, the partisans fought under the Italian tricolor flag, standing against the black flags of the fascists and the swastikas of the nazis.
Celebrating April 25th means remembering that struggle for freedom and democracy and defending the values of Italy’s anti-fascist Constitution that was born from that struggle.
To celebrate these ideals we’re hosting a Bella Ciao dinner and party. There will be great food, live music, and an antifascist karaoke – a chance for everyone to grab the mic and sing the songs that inspired the fight for freedom.

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Cinema Italia: Cinema Paradiso (Giuseppe Tornatore, 1988)

By: börek - February 2nd, 2025  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday February 2, 2025, Cinema Italia: Cinema Paradiso * 1988 * Directed by Giuseppe Tornatore * 173 min * In Italian with English subtitles * doors open at 20:00, film starts at 20:30. After the film, please engage in sharing comments, ideas, and inspiration with the host(s) of the evening!

The public image of this film is that of a portrait of a neorealist Sicily in the past, with a vein of nostalgia. And a homage to cinema, for the many citations of classics, especially American films. But it is much more than that. Cinema Paradiso tells the story of cinema as a unique experience: in each projection, the projected film is only part of the story; the audience plays an essential role in the experience, transforming the film, and even a role plays the projectionist, often forgotten. In the latter, this film tells us about a form of art and poetry that disappeared with digitalization. In the background, many political messages, such as those of the Communists in Sicily, were at the margins of a society where poverty was an everyday reality. This makes us question what we are ready to sacrifice to escape misery.

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Free entrance. You want to screen a movie, let us know: joe [at] lists [dot] squat [dot] net

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Benefit for the family of Moussa Balde

By: börek - January 10th, 2025  Filed under: Volkseten/Voku

Monday January 13, 2025, Benefit for the family of Moussa Balde. Food served from 7pm, no reservation.

Todays voku will be to raise funds to allow Moussa Balde’s sister, brother and mother to take part in the first hearing of the trial of two responsible for his death. Moussa, originally from Guinea, was held as a non-European and irregular person on the territory, and for this reason he died in the isolation of a cell. Moussa’s death was neither “fatal” nor the fruit of a chain of inadvertence, but the consequence of structural racism. This hearing will be held in Turin on February 12.
The family members are represented by lawyers Gianluca Vitale and Laura Martinelli.
The funds are needed to pay for travel costs and the expensive visas for Italy, as well as the expenses while their stay.
During their visit to Italy of about a month, the family members would like to take part actively in various contestation events against CPR throughout Pemonte (Torino) and Liguria (Genova, Imperia, Ventigmiglia).

WHO WAS MOUSSA BALDE?

He was a friend and comerade, who died in the night between 22 and 23 May 2021 after 10 days spent in a cell in the isolation area, called Ospedaletto, inside the Turin CPR corso Brunelleschi. On May 9 he was beaten up in Ventimiglia by three Italians. After a short stay at the hospital he was held in the detention center, ignoring his serious physical and psychological condition.

To read more about the processes and his history, you can visit this blog (in Italian) under the category “Moussa Balde” https://parolesulconfine.com/ > Moussa Balde

NOW

On 12 February in Turin, the preliminary hearing of the proceeding for manslaughter will be held against the former director of the CPR and the medical director of the structure at the time of Moussa Balde’s death.
In February 2023, this very same CPR on corso Brunelleschi went on fire and remained closed until now. Yet it’s about to reopen.

Between June 2019 and December 2022, ten people lost their lives while being held in administrative detention. At the beginning of February 2024, the young Ousmane Sylla, who turns out to be a neighbor and friend of the Balde family, committed suicide in the CPR in Rome.

The presence of the family is crucial, not only for this legal procedure against this particular structure, it is also essential to strengthen a wide movement against the opening of more of these prisons in Liguria (as in Diano Marina) and in every Italian region.

AGAINST THE REOPENING OF TURIN’S CPR, WHERE MOUSSA BALDE DIED
AGAINST ALL CPR
FOR FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT
JUSTICE FOR MOUSSA […Lees verder]

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Cinema Italia: Many Years Ago (Francesco Rosi, 1970)

By: börek - November 17th, 2024  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday November 17, 2024, Many Years Ago (1970) * Directed by Francesco Rosi * 101 min * In Italian with English subtitles * doors open at 20:00, film starts at 20:30. After the film, please engage in sharing comments, ideas, and inspiration with the host(s) of the evening!

Set in the First World War for its pacifist and anti-militarist message, it was boycotted from cinemas on its release. The general’s orders ridicule the high command and show the inhumanity of the conflict, while soldiers represent the ideal types of conflicting political and social ideas such as monarchy and socialism, which have to coexist at the front. The film’s dramatic tone, which distances it from the book on which it was inspired, was harshly criticised at the time of its release. Looking at it through today’s lenses — more than 50 years later — it is more relevant than ever. In fact, over a century has passed since the events recounted, in the year 1916 on the Asiago Plateau; however, the contrast between the war of generals and the war of simple soldiers sweeps away the false myth of the war hero because the enemy is not the enemy soldiers but their own commanders.

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Free entrance. You want to screen a movie, let us know: joe [at] lists [dot] squat [dot] net

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