We want to get the building where the Clinic is located, the Prague Council agreed. Negotiations will begin
Councilor Karel Grabein Procházka (YES) promised that Prague would negotiate with the Office for Representation of the State in Property Matters on the purchase or exchange of the building where the Autonomous Social Center Klinika is located. “If this step could be arranged, the city would prepare the reconstruction of the building. Until then, the Clinic would continue to be located in it,” Procházka explained. According to the director of ÚZSVM Kateřina Arajmu, the office cannot transfer the building to the city free of charge. But Procházka also wants to negotiate with the office about this possibility.
Prague – Prague will negotiate the purchase or replacement of a building in Žižkov, where it operated Autonomous Social Center Clinic. The meeting with the Office for Representation of the State in Property Matters (ÚZSVM) will take place this week, the newly elected property councilor Karel Grabein Procházka (YES) told reporters after the city council meeting.
The attempt to acquire the building into the ownership of Prague was one of the five points by which the Troika Coalition (SZ, STAN, KDU-ČSL) conditioned the renewal of the coalition at the Prague City Hall.
“If this step could be arranged, the city would prepare the reconstruction of the building. Until then, the Clinic would continue to be located in it,” Procházka explained. According to him, the preparation of repairs should be as short as possible, after which Prague would offer the building to the non-profit sector in a public tender.
According to an earlier statement by the director of ÚZSVM Kateřina Arajma, the office cannot transfer the building to the city free of charge, but Procházka also wants to negotiate with the office about this possibility. Prague can obtain the building without a tender if the building is used for public benefit purposes. But he will have to pay for it.
The contract expired at the end of March
The interest in the building provided in the past by the General and recently the Security Council and also the Labor Office of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, but both intentions of the authorities eventually withdrew.
The Klinika Center began operations in December 2014, when the empty building of the former polyclinic in Jeseniova Street was occupied by activists and operated without a permit for several days. Two months later, they obtained the building from the property office for free borrowing and repaired it themselves.
Among other things, the center hosts lectures, screenings and concerts, and later the center launched a collection of clothes for refugees. In February this year, the Clinic was attacked by masked perpetrators on the day of anti-migration demonstrations in Prague. Hundreds of people have repeatedly demonstrated in support of the center in the past.
At the beginning of March, the Clinic expired a contract that the property office did not extend. The squatters continued to operate in the building until Friday. The police then vacated the building due to an anonymous person who reported a bomb in it, but it was not found. The squatters were not allowed to return to the house, the police handed him over to the ÚZSVM, but they nevertheless occupied the house again. On Wednesday, they are going to pay a fine to the office for not clearing it.
It is increasingly dangerous to be a European Jew, states fail to protect their own citizens, says Chief Rabbi Karol Sidon. | Video: Daniela Drtinová