Barcelona Ombudsman’s Office urges reflection on Antiga Massana eviction plans

The Barcelona Ombudsman’s Office has urged "reflection" on the city council's plans to evict the Antiga Massana old school building in the center of the Catalan capital.

The institution wants to create a space for dialogue to find possible alternatives to maintain the community work that goes on in the space currently.

The Barcelona city council, led by the Socialist Party, had set the eviction date for the Antiga Massana for Thursday, October 17, as announced in a press conference by the social groups that occupy the space.

However, this eviction was prevented by the community members in the building offering "peaceful resistance," and the Barcelona council will request a court order to carry out the eviction.

A protest has been organized for Friday, October 18, to demand that the community members in the space be allowed to stay in the building. 

The Ombudsman's Office is an institution that "defends the fundamental rights and freedoms of Barcelona’s citizens and other people who are in the city," according to their website.

In a statement, the group considers that authorities are "lacking a space for dialogue" and want to find "a solution" and demanded that the space be enabled "for the benefit of the common good and public interest."

The Antiga Massana is a building in the Raval district of Barcelona's old town which has been occupied by social groups for a number of years and put to use for community ends.

The building provides a community gym, a space for arts and culture, and for community engagement, such as hosting meetings for housing rights activists.

Locals hail community value of the space

Lamiae Abassi, a resident of the Raval neighborhood, explained to the Catalan News Agency (ACN) that she has always lived in the neighborhood and through the years has participated in many community activities, some linked to the city council, and some not.

"That a place like La Massana exists is important" as it is a space where residents find support, she says: "It's needed in neighborhoods." According to her, institutional spaces do not necessarily respond to people's needs.

In La Antiga Massana there are sporting activities, such as boxing, or Catalan and Spanish classes, which are very important for integration, and Abassi assures that they will "fight to the end" to keep the space open and operated by the community.

Ana is another Raval local who visited the space on Thursday who believes in the necessity of defending the existence of the Massana community space as she is convinced of the value that the space brings to the Raval.

Council in favor of recovering the building

Former Barcelona mayor Ada Colau started negotiations with the social groups to transfer ownership of the space while she was still in office, but this did not come to fruition, with Colau pointing to administrative deadlines making it impossible. Since 2023, she has been out of office, replaced by the Socialist Party, who want to evict the community activists and operate the building themselves. 

The councilor in charge of the Ciutat Vella district, Albert Batlle, has repeatedly said the building needs to be recovered and believes that nothing justifies the occupation of the space by community groups since June 2020. 

"We will make the social policies if appropriate, but we will make them in accordance with and directed from the council," he said in an interview with ACN during the summer.

According to him, the space had degraded and needs to be recovered by the council, just as was done a few months ago by evicting the Migrant Lock, which is also part of the same complex.