3. Squatters

Squat in central London
Imagen de Kaihsu Tai en Wikimedia bajo licencia CC

 

Squatting usually refers to a person, who is not the owner, taking possession of land or an empty house. People squat for a variety of reasons which include needing a home, protest, poverty and recreation. Many squats are residential, some are also opened as social centres. Squatting in residential property became a criminal offence in England on September 1, 2012. Squatting in non-residential property may be a civil or a criminal matter, depending upon the circumstances.

Read the following article.

Youth squat in Denmark demolished

The building had been used as a squatters' youth cultural centre for some 20 years.

Bulldozers have begun knocking down a building in central Copenhagen in Denmark, which has been used as a squatters youth cultural centre for some 20 years. The tearing down of the building caused violent riots at the weekend, as Julian Isherwood reports from Copenhagen:

At eight o'clock sharp, masked workers began tearing down the building with large numbers of police at the ready to prevent any trouble. The cranes and vehicles being used were all painted over to prevent recognition of the company being used for the demolition. A small group of young people looked on as the building, which has been used as a squatters youth cultural centre for some twenty years, began to crumble.

Copenhagen's been relatively quiet for the past twenty-four hours following some of the worst unrest that the Danish capital's seen for decades. Demonstrations, burning barricades and cars, torn up cobble stones, molotov cocktails and police charges up to the weekend made some parts of the centre of Copenhagen look like a war zone.

In all, some six hundred and fifty people, many of them young foreign activists, have been detained by the police. And the courts have been working round the clock since last Friday to get through all the cases. Many have been remanded in custody for up to two weeks and the foreign nationals - predominantly from Germany and Sweden - are being deported.

Demolition did begin peacefully and the police spokesman said that one reason may be that many of the ringleaders of the unrest are behind bars, but he said the large numbers of police that have dominated the city picture since the end of last week, will remain there to prevent any further disturbances.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/newsenglish/witn/2007/03/070305_squatter_demolition.shtml

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Find words and expressions in the article to match the definitions.

employees wearing things (masks) to hide and/or protect their faces by covering them
to stop people finding out the identity of

people who live in and make use of a building or piece of land without official permission and without paying rent

protests, riots, disturbances, violence
tens of years
things that are used to deliberately and temporarily obstruct or block a path, street or road
small round stones that are set in the ground to create roads or paths
simple bombs made up of bottles filled with fuel and a piece of cloth or paper in the end which is then lit and thrown to cause damage and start fires
held by the police or in a special centre until the date of their trial in court

 forced to go back to the country they came from, making it illegal for them to return

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Read this article about the economic crisis and housing problems in Spain.