This Tuesday, the Police evacuated the Atalaya social center in Vallecas, one of the largest and best known in Madrid. The members of the CSO (Occupied Social Center) denounced it on their social networks in the morning, in which videos and images of the police operation to empty the space have also been broadcast. It is located next to Javier de Miguel Park and its history has spanned ten years in the capital.
The Anti-Repressive Movement of Madrid, in its X account, also echoed the eviction and has asked everyone who can to go to the area to prevent this movement. At 7:30 p.m. an urgent demonstration was called in front of the Vallecas Assembly, headquarters of the regional government located in the same area as the social center, to protest the latest events.
The building that until now housed this social center is owned by Ivima, the Madrid Housing Institute, an economic and financial organization of the Community of Madrid. It used to be a school, but since 2014 the first occupants of the center that it is today began to arrive. The regional government, asked about this issue, says it does not know if it was notified before or not, as the occupants reported this morning, but they emphasize that since there are “no more official owners” than themselves, it would be logical that they would not know who there is. to notify and proceed directly to the eviction. Neither the responsible department at the regional level nor the National Police report which court order activated the operation, but both agree that this mechanism is what led to the twist.
Sources from the police force do specify that several units were deployed in the operation, including the UIP (Police Intervention Unit) and some district police stations, in an action that they define as “calm and without incidents.” Various activities had been organized inside the building for some time. A movement with anarchist overtones and a youthful tone had emerged, which ended up emerging as a multipurpose space. It has functioned as a meeting room, boxing gym, forging workshop or bicycle factory, library, academy for extracurricular classes, urban garden, feminist debate classroom… The list of options is endless. At the same entrance the times of those held daily are displayed, and which especially attract participants from the neighborhood, whether young or old.
This eviction was sudden and, according to what was initially reported by the CSO in X, it was not communicated to the occupants of Atalaya either. After a decade of history as part of the Madrid squatter movement, its end seems to be coming. It remains to be seen if this afternoon’s rally, which also coincides with the municipal budget debate in Cibeles, manages to pull some strings and restore hope to those who want to continue maintaining the space that has been built since 2014.
What was known was that Mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida was rehabilitating the area surrounding the park next to which the center is located. The idea was to build a pedestrian route between viewpoints, but the CSO suggested that it could be an urban planning business to attempt an eviction. Regardless of whether these hypotheses were true or not, the eviction has ended up being carried out. In fact, there was a prior investigation for usurpation and a letter to the police station to proceed with the eviction.
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