Spanish State/Albacete: residents of the 600 denounce illegal demolition of their houses and attacks on human rights
Featured image: Protest banner on the attacked building. Source: El Digital de Albacete
We publish this unofficial translation of an article of Servir al Pueblo.
According to local press ( La Tribuna de Albacete and El Digital de Albacete ) and other digital media (Lo Que Somos), residents of the La Milagrosa neighborhood – more popularly known as “the 600” – have organized to denounce illegal demolition of the building in which they live on the 2nd of April. We reproduce the press release that has been sent to the media and which we have found in full here :
“The City Council wants to evict illegally and against human rights, collapsing buildings with people and families inside.”
At the beginning of February, the Albacete City Council notified many of us that they were going to expel us from our homes, specifically the residents of Puerta de Chinchilla and Jorge Juan streets. The notice was made suddenly and without indicating a date and time for the start, as it should legally indicate. Now, a week in advance, they warn with a sign on the street (without individual notification) that the demolition of our buildings begins on April 2nd.
The 600 is a neighborhood born of poverty, everyone in Albacete is aware of the bad reputation of this area. It is a neighborhood that has become a ghetto for the poorest in society, necessarily due to the bad policies of the different governments of the City Council, Provincial Council and the Autonomous Community. All of them have direct and indirect responsibility.
Just as it was born from poverty, it is poverty that sustains its existence and has allowed us residents to continue living here, despite the terrible sanitation conditions and the state of several of its buildings. We ask the residents of the rest of Albacete not to be fooled by a bad image that does not correspond to reality. The houses in the neighborhood are a salvation for many families who cannot afford to rent and for hard-working immigrants who, in other circumstances, would be living on the streets. Many of us here have been working our entire lives, or have put our physical integrity at risk to come to Spain along the deadliest routes in the world from Africa.
This is a reality that is not expressed much, while people blatantly lie about the neighborhood: that the 600 is a neighborhood of thugs, drug dealers and criminals, that the residents there “have no solution,” etc. They forcefully turn the neighborhood into a ghetto for the poorest, and on top of that, they then criminalize the situation, blaming… those of us who live in the neighborhood! Drug trafficking does not come from nowhere. It is a painful consequence that is born from poverty sustained by the policies of the City Council, Provincial Council and the Autonomous Community.
Another reality that the people of Albacete are also aware of is that a solution has been promised for years to the problem of the 600, and we are suffering from that attempted solution now. It turns out that the plan was to throw us all out onto the street without any consideration. The plan, simply, is an urban remodeling to, in perspective, gentrify it and expel its current neighbors through illegal evictions and systematic violation of human rights.
A sign placed by the City Council expressed the following, in bold and underlined as we transcribe it here:
“THE DEMOLITION WORK OF THE COMPLETE BUILDING WILL BEGIN SHORTLY, IT IS NECESSARY FOR YOUR SAFETY THAT BY SUCH DATE YOU EMPTY THE BUILDING, AND YOU MAY BE RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY PERSONAL DAMAGES AND MATERIALS THAT YOU MAY SUFFER IF YOU DO NOT DO SO”
We believe that this position is truly intolerable, and does not seek to protect us as it says, but rather to sow terror among residents so that they voluntarily abandon their homes (of course, without really having a place to go) under the threat of suffering “personal harm.” There is no valid housing alternative. The City Council says: go and die of cold in the street, or stay and die buried. Many of us here have already gone through maximum risks just to have a house to sleep in. It is evident that this notice is not going to evict a single person. Many residents of other blocks, most with families, watch with concern as the situation develops, thinking that they will be next.
-We deny the responsibility that the City Council wants to place on us regarding hygiene and the ruin of buildings.
-We point out that the City Council, Provincial Council and Autonomous Community are responsible for the fact that in Albacete a regrettable situation of housing and living, and forced poverty, has been maintained for 50 years.
-We point out to those responsible that the immigrant seasonal workers, the driving force and heart of the agrarian regime in the region, are treated as disposable. No one should work so hard and still not be able to afford a bed.
-We request the solidarity of the residents of Albacete, and we ask that they not be fooled by a false image. We are not criminals, we are working families.
-We demand an immediate and realistic housing solution, and in particular, the stopping of any illegal eviction that violates Human Rights.
If we legitimize expelling people from the place where they live, without harming anyone and as the only way to survive the forced poverty in which they live, we will be legitimizing the attacks against all the workers and the humble people of the city.
Signed :
Residents of the 600 , united in solidarity.
Albacete, March 2024 «
