Occupied Madrid hotel opens doors to first evicted citizen

The abandoned Hotel Madrid, which was taken over by an unknown number of squatters on October 16 after a mass rally in the capital organized by the 15-M movement, opened its doors on Monday to the first person to take up the group's stated strategy of "freeing up spaces for common use."

A spokesman for the Platform for the Mortgage Affected confirmed that a 75-year-old woman, who was evicted from her apartment in the Carabanchel district of the city last week, would be taken in by the protestors at the hotel. And she is not likely to be alone: a further 16 people have been placed on a list to be given one of the rooms in the hotel. An assembly of squatters was expected to decide to whom shelter would be granted on Tuesday afternoon.

In addition to a refuge for people evicted from their homes for non-payment of their mortgages, the group is aiming to create a legal information center in the hotel "where people can learn in a non-authoritarian or hierarchical manner, free from dogma or sectarian will and beyond the fringe of utilitarian reason."

The Hotel Madrid is a stone's throw from Sol square, which has been the focal point of the 15-M movement. In a message posted on its website, the "indignant ones" expressed their support for all of the occupations of buildings in Madrid and Barcelona as a "tool for political freedom."