The Tenants' Defense Committee plans to take tourists on a walking tour of the slums and the area around the National Stadium which is disappearing due to gentrification and capital's war against the poor. The tours will be held in different languages and will take place during the Euro 2012 tournament.
(More information on the tours can be found in the English section of the Committee's page: www.lokatorzy.info.pl )
The tours received a lot of attention but we have word that City Hall is furious. In recent days we have observed that the city is painting the facades and entrance ways of buildings around the stadium in express time. People who have been waiting 40 years to see their crumbling entrances painted are finally able to observe some work done - but not the repairs that the houses actually need. In addition, paint jobs are only down in the front of the buildings. Tenants we spoke to complained bitterly that the city has done nothing for so long, claiming there is no money, but all of a sudden found resources to impress foreign football fans.
(Below are some photos taken by the Okrzejowki patrol, created to fight neighbourhood arsons, of the same entranceway a couple of months ago. There was an arson attack in the back of this building. We demanded the city equip buildings with fire extinguishers and other equipment, which is required in other public buildings, but the city claimed there was no money. The doors of the building are still open all night, there are still plenty of fire hazards, but they don't care about that.)
On this page you can press the arrows and scroll down to see some views of the neighbourhood. This is not the worst of it... we did not want to disclose to the city where we will actually be going since we expect their interference. What's more, a very unusual thing happened in relation to the publication of this article. This main paper always has hundreds of comments under such articles, but the commenting option was turned off. We suppose that the city may have also had something to do with this fact, since the government is trying to squash all protests and all signs of protest during the Euro.
Anpther thing the city is doing is getting homeless people to go around the neighbourhood and scrape all our posters down. Posters that have been up for years are being eliminated, so that football fans get no sign of our social discontent.
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