‘Streetslaughter’ in Vienna: 1700 cops vs 19 squatters

Even in a city where everybody patiently waits for the traffic light to turn green before crossing the streets (while no car in sight), there’s trouble now and then. In those cases, police troops do the job.

So it costs a million euro, and the free newspaper Österreich calls it ‘one of the biggest streetslaughters in the history of Vienna’; but hey, at least they got the message.

Monday a group of nineteen squatters were kicked out of a building they lived in for the last two years. Initially they were invited by the landlord himself, who wanted to chase away the last occupants, some eldery people who refused to move out of the building he wanted to renovate and sell for a large sum of money. He thought the squatters might do the trick. Unfortunately for him, they chose sides with the eldery people.

To make a long story short, yesterday all nineteen ‘punkers’ were evicted from the building, with the help of 1700 policemen, a policehelicopter, an armoured car and a watercanon.

With special thanks to my fellow student Jordan, with whom I had lunch today at the Filmfestival at Rathausplatz (1st district, Innere Stadt)