Transcript of a general meeting in terms of the violent attacks on Syrena Squat in Warsaw

The people of Syrena told us their story from the attacks and gave an overview about the background and how they were resisting in Syrena throughout several years. 

Stop Bullshit collective and Syrena

Syrena was a Squat in the center of Warsaw. The “Stop Bullshit collective” was founded as a response towards the right-shift and state actions like the “hate-trucks” which drive through the cities, decorated with banners showing extremist anti-choice, LGBTI-, and Queer-hatred slogans and spread this propaganda through speakers on their roof.  In 2019 one of these trucks was attacked by people, when it parked in front of Syrena. This was not only followed by a huge repression from the state, but also inside the scene people got attacked more and more because of their queerfeminist positions, especially from the environment of Przychodnia. Meetings of Syrena collective were manipulated and disturbed from other people of the scene. People of Stop Bullshit and Syrena called these things out as mysoginistic, homo- and transhatred violence and decided to not leave Syrena, but to stay and fight against the discriminatory and violent environment.

The attacks against the Queerfeminist and LGBTIQA* people of Syrena where rising.

Przychodnia 

Przychodnia is the directly neighboring Squat of Syrena. The conflict with Przychodnia arose after the calling out of a rape some 3-4 ys ago. People who positioned towards the affected person were mobbed out. Only the sexist and perpetrator-protective part of the collective stayed. The process was never done. The people from Przychodnia are not really politically active, they are mostly doing Punk concerts and drinking beers. 

Violent housemates

One of the most violent persons inside Syrena was Dima. There were a lot of situations, when Dima was saying Trans- and Queerhatred stuff to people, especially when he thought nobody else would listen. He was also threatening people to harm them physically and he also did this on several occasions (punching face, choking). He was also threatening a lot of times to “come with his friends”, who are cis-male and doing martial arts, he threatened with a knife as well.  People decided to not stand this level of violence any more and decided that Dima, Bartek had to leave the collective and also that D. and Yulia (Dima's partner) had to leave the house. First affected people wrote a letter to announce it. Already then they were attacked by the protectors of Dima who screamed for hours at them. The way how they asked Dima to go was very respectful. They prepared another room/solution for Dima to not leave him on the street.

Attacks from the 5th of December ended in an eviction

After people told Dima to go, he came back with the people from Pzychodnia. They were 30- 40 people mostly cis-males who were coming through the backyard, shouting Dima should be allowed to stay there.They were throwing bottles, pyro, bricks and huge stones that broke helmets of syrena people, the people of Syrena flew into the building and blocked the doors (they were prepared for Nazi attacks). The guys cut the fence with angle grinders and went to the yard. Then they broke the windows, threw fireworks into the building, also attacked with pepper spray.   After 4 hours of fight, the Syrena people decided they had to leave the building and flew over the roof. 

4 ppl suffered some injuries, 1 person had to go to the hospital, because of a fractured skull. Dima and some people from Pzychodnia took over the house, they stole and destroyed a lot of things.  Apart from the fact that those sort of attacks took into account that people could die, some of the attackers spoke death threats. 12 People and guests became homeless. They couldn't take anything of their personal stuff, people needed medicines from their rooms.  After a time when Syrena people tried to take their personal stuff Przychodnia people appeared as guards at the entrance of Syrena. They let enter just chosen people for a short time to take their stuff.

This Eviction of Syrena visibilized the crack in the movement between the authoritorian Macho- Manarchists and their followers and the rest/Queerfeminists

Afterwards

After those attacks there came a lot of Solidarity from antifa and anarchists groups from Poland. But also some people and several groups/collectives like Rozbrat in Poznan (Posen) don´t believe Syrena people and said they where lying. The affected people had to explain many times/always what happened, what different and hard types of violence they experienced.  Rozbrat and Przychodnia People use arguments in case of Dima that he is allegedly an important belarussian activist and is discriminated now because of ethnic and cultural differences. (This was, though, ultimately refuted by anarchists from Belarus in their statements.) In general Syrena people can´t imagine to go back to their house. Now they are out of energy.

What support is wished by Syrena now and in the future?

• Przychodnia and Rozbrat should not be part of the movement any more. They wish publicity and to spread the word to friends and scene, that this violent, Mysoginistic, Queer-Trans-Homohatred and Anti-feminist spaces should not be supported. People shouldnt make or go to events, bands who want to play there have to be informed.                  

• They have to be outed as dangerous spaces to all FLINTA* and Queer people!         

• List of perpetrators will be handed out, don't edit it without knowledge:  pad.riseup.net/p/blacklist

• money is welcome, send it to https://liberapay.com/Syrena also cash money is welcome         

• solidarity statements- send them to Syrena, they will publish it (they use Facebook and website syrena.org)         

• “calendar of violence” - a positive outcome of the situation is that people all over Poland who experienced sexist violence and discrimination spoke up-they are reporting it in the “calendar of violence” → Make a website for this         

• Important to use this situation within queer anarchist movement to build up a common and strong voice and get even more connected         

• Growing queerfeminist networks through workshops, skillsharing,  cooperations, learning from each other, empowering each other 

• Discursive fight- speak up. Also physical presence, queerfeminist resistance in our spaces.                  

• Doing a huge Demo against Partiarchal violence together (not now, they are exhausted...maybe next year and in Poznan?)

Adresses to contact Syrena People:

    Syrenaemail@riseup.net