RTS (Reclaim The Streets) for Binz squat in Zurich

Posted by: admin Posted date: March 04, 2013 In: Movement, News | comment : 0

Yesterday, Saturday March 2nd, the latest Reclaim the Streets (RTS) took place in Zurich. It was only in September 2011, when the youth of Zurich gathered the streets to claim their right for non commercial spaces and parties (which is called Reclaim the Streets here, a demonstration concept invented somewhere in the 90ies) as they met on central places in the city with sound systems to make a big party, which of course was dispersed by the police with rubber bullets and tear gas. More than 2500 people gathered at the “Binz” Squat, a big factory complex which is used for living, working and cultural activities since 2006 and which is the far biggest place like this in Zurich. In the past few years, plenty of eviction dates have passed, but now it seems to be real: Until May 2013, all people have to leave because the federal state of Zurich (not the city), who owns the area now, wants to realize a new project there.

There was a (silent) mobilisation for the 2nd of March to make the “last Binz-Fest” and as always, thousands of youths came. There were several sound systems with Electro, Dubstep, Favela Funk and also one car with a live punk-concert on it. As a convoi and with plenty of colourful dressed people, the RTS started entering the streets at 23:00. The “parade” moved towards the city centre without anything interrupting it. As the crowd – which was growing bigger and bigger to more than 3000 people – reached Bahnhof Wiedikon (Wiedikon Train Station), the police, which was only watching the crowd until then, gained forces and blocked the route towards the city centre with water cannons, rubber bullets and tear gas.

Quickly, the big plaza in front of Bahnhof Wiedikon emptied, the sound system cars turned around and took another route, as the police fired hundreds of rubber bullets against the end of the crowd, where soon dozens of black masked people gathered to errect barricades and throw bottles and stones towards the police (which was almost useless, because the police NEVER came near than the rubber bullet/tear gas distance, which must be something like 100-200 meters). At this point the riots started, but because of the big distance from the police, it was more a cat-and-mouse game: black block groups secured the RTS in the back and on the sides with building barricades and setting them on fire, so that the soundsystems and the main part of the parade could continue their way.

Between 23:00 and 0:00 the RTS tried to find alternative routes to the city centre and reached Helvetiaplatz as a peak. The riots following the crowd where gaining place and the police used more rubber bullets and tear gas. At Langstrasse/Badener Strasse, a branch of the supermarket chain “Coop” was looted. People took tobacco & alcoholics and threw chocolate easter bunnies on the streets. A public transport tramway on the way got completely covered in graffitis, as the passengers where still sitting inside. The same happened to tramway stations in the area.

As the battle to enter the inner city was still holding on and the RTS had to be in constant action in order to not get splitted by water cannons and tear gas, an office building of KPMG was attacked with stones, also a branch of ZKB (Zürcher Kantonalbank) and a showroom of Mercedes-Benz. A UBS (bank) branch was heavily damaged, the police station Wiedikon was also attacked and several police cars were heavily damaged, as swiss television SRF reports.

At about 1am the RTS started its retreat back to the Binz, which was accompanied by heavy street battles in the area Birmensdorfer Strasse/Freyastrasse and Bahnhof Wiedikon, where dozens of barricades were burning and which completely looked like a big battle ground. The fights in that area lasted for at least 30 minutes, as the peak of the RTS already reached the Binz. Until 2am about 2000 people reached the Binz, including all sound systems, and the party lasted the whole night.

The police and city workers started to clean up the mess and only at about 1:45am several police vans, one of them with open side door to shoot rubber bullets, rushed along the barricades of the Uetlibergstrasse (where the Binz is located) and hit the sideroad just in front of the Binz, as the main crowd dispersed, but some people threw stones and bottles to the police cars. That was the last time the police was seen near Binz that night. The party that followed was great, even and especially on the streets.

Binz bleibt Binz! Too Binz too fail!