Protest in Cort against the eviction of the old Palma prison: "It will not make homelessness disappear"

PalmaAround fifty people gathered this Friday in Plaça de Cort, in Palma, to protest against the eviction of the last 80 residents of the old prison and to warn that this action “will not make homelessness disappear” in the city.

The attendees displayed banners with slogans such as 'People without homes and homes without people' and chanted slogans against real estate speculation and the criminalization of poverty. They also called for 'class unity' against racism and residential exclusion policies.

The spokesperson for the Palma Housing Union, Miquel Durán, has denounced a 'macro-eviction' and stated that the process was carried out with 'coercion' and without real housing alternatives for the majority of those affected. According to him, many residents are in an irregular administrative situation and have only been offered, in some cases, very limited temporary stays in emergency facilities.

Durán also criticized the police operation deployed during the process and stated that some of the evicted people have ended up in vacant lots or hidden spaces in the city.

For their part, the spokesperson for the Socialist Youth Organization of Mallorca, Emma Crespí, has denounced that in Palma there are thousands of empty homes while the number of homeless people increases, and has called for these properties to be activated to respond to the housing crisis.

In the reading of the manifesto, the organizers have framed the eviction within the "structural housing crisis" and have criticized the institutional response, which they consider aimed at "invisibilizing" the problem instead of solving it.