After 8 days of resilience the police managed to evict the socio-cultural center L.U.P.O. The municipality demolished a long standing hub of ideas, creativity and self-management to make room for projects to further gentrify the neigbourhood.
L.U.P.O. (Laboratorio Urbano Populare / Popular Urban Laboratory / Lupo also means wolf, and is the name of the square in which it is situated) was a squatted socio-cultural centre in Catania, Sicily. For 12 years it was a creative, community-led, shared space, organising all kinds of activities.
In November 2025, government plans for the square in which it is located first came to the attention of comrades – many new parking places and the demolition of the beloved socio-cultural centre is the general idea of the municipality’s “urban regeneration” plans. Although it seemed eviction might be imminent already in fall, it is now, in March 2026, that the works have advanced. After eight days of permanent occupation of the entire square in which L.U.P.O was situated, heavily armed police forces arrived on March 29th at 4am and violently cleared the site. For eight days however, L.U.P.O. was filled with more life than ever on the whole square.
The following two statements by the comrades at the L.U.P.O. have been translated from Italian to spread general knowledge about the situation and call for support:
So here we are at a new beginning. L.U.P.O., drawing on all its past actions and experiences, is transforming and making its presence felt. It has taken over the street in front, now closed to traffic, but bursting with supporters – people who spend their days there in permanent protest. The solidarity with a social space – which has been a lifeline for musicians, artists, political groups and like-minded individuals – is clear and deeply felt.
Anyone passing through Piazza Pietro Lupo cannot fail to notice that for days now there has been a struggle to keep alive the community that has developed over the years, thanks in part to the L.U.P.O.
And on the building site, which should already have been ‘secured’, the workers are able to work only sporadically, thanks to the constant intervention of people who are preventing the perimeter of the square from being fully cordoned off or who are standing between the bulldozers and the site area. But the local council – the very body that decided how to use the European funds from the NRRP and allocated €4 million for a car park in Piazza Pietro Lupo – seems to have absolutely no intention of taking action to secure the construction site or deploying the authorities. It’s as if we didn’t exist… As if the people who continue to occupy the LUPO had no say in the decisions that will shape the Catania of their future lives.
This gives an indication of how politicians and contractors are pushing ahead with projects designed to ‘improve the city’s conditions’, only to make squares, streets and neighbourhoods easier to exploit for profit and more accessible to tourists – with the city’s economy becoming a single-sector economy inextricably linked to tourism. It shows how social spaces – hubs of diversity – have no place in Catania, after all; indeed, places where a consciousness that challenges the current political and economic system can be nurtured and allowed to flourish must be razed to the ground. Any opportunity for confrontation with the present that is engulfing our city, our cities, must be avoided.
‘Culture and lawfulness’ is promoted; but merely as slogans for a showcase Catania, designed for a form of tourism that experiences places through the lens of urban decorum. Everything else can be left to rot or continue to exist and endure the things as they are; after all, social welfare, as we know, does not generate profit; it is an expense that weighs heavily on the institutions’ budgets.
But although our analysis paints a grim picture for Catania’s future, we are well aware that even those who think they can override the will of those who see things differently cannot do so!
Resisting the clearance of L.U.P.O. is resisting the implementation of all the construction sites open here in the city.
Because now, it is no longer possible to silence the dissent that exists and has always existed against ‘tourist-oriented urban regeneration’. It is the present that matters here. The ongoing protest outside L.U.P.O continues… It is a topic of conversation and debate for all the people of Catania, giving them the chance to reflect on how this city is changing and how much this affects their own well-being. The WOLF’S HOWL cuts well through the senselessness of demolishing the former gym to make way for yet another car park and tourist information centre. It carries far beyond the city walls and will not be silenced.
We are certain that resistance and self-management are the best strategies to oppose the advance of the desert.
You cannot demolish an idea!
Three days into the occupation of Piazza Lupo [the entire square in which the squat is located], the message is clear: eviction attempts only lead to further unrest and fuel the desire for ever greater freedom of action. The constant stream of supporters reinforces the reality of self-management: communal lunches and dinners have become routine, as have the discussions during assemblies about the course of action to take; people share their experiences and chart new paths. Gratitude is growing towards the local community, which is showing its support, whilst hatred is directed at any law enforcement agency that makes their clumsy attempts to enforce the construction project.
In the late afternoon, the solidarity activists reclaimed the spaces seized by the authorities and tore down the construction site barriers, before marching in a spontaneous procession towards the town hall, holding up a banner to remind the council that the eviction of Lupo would not go unnoticed.
We are well aware, however, that something is missing: those who are currently locked up in prison or those forced to stay away from here because of expulsion orders. Whilst they are imprisoned in cells or within arbitrary geographical boundaries, the wolf sharpens its claws and lashes out against the siege that is increasingly closing in on its den.
We will resist for them too, because when they return, they can once again be part of the struggles we have shared – struggles that have also played out within the Palestra Lupo.
It’s true, it could all be over by tomorrow. But the present we’re reclaiming is worth every bit of the struggle.
Ideas can’t be torn down, but barriers can. Right down to the very last one.
Despite our dislike of the Council of the First Municipality and every other fragment of the vast institutional mosaic of oppression, it does provide us with an opportunity to clarify the situation regarding the eviction from the L.U.P.O.
The real insult to this neighbourhood’s regeneration is certainly not the removal of the construction site barriers and the failure to respect its sacred inviolability, but rather the acceptance of yet another proposal aimed at creating a gentrified square for the sole purpose of profit and tourism. We believe the real insult is the institutions’ usual pseudo-environmentalist rhetoric: by installing electric charging points and solar panels, they think they can pull the wool over our eyes by proposing yet another car park.
To the hypocritical questioning of the First City Council, which wonders who on earth could possibly resort to such violence against a building site, we reply quite simply: all those standing in solidarity are acting with determination to reclaim the city, whose revival certainly does not lie in new car parks or the demolition of community spaces.
And we agree: direct action is never a reckless stunt, nor will it ever be, because taking action without authorisation against those who oppress us is an essential part of our lives. Work may well continue on a building site operating outside the very legal framework they hold so dear; the L.U.P.O. may well be demolished at the end of this courageous resistance, but one thing is certain: those who are putting their bodies on the line to prevent the eviction from the L.U.P.O. are promoting self-management, horizontal organisation and resistance against a status quo increasingly constrained by the logic of the market and power.
After eight days of permanent occupation in Piazza Pietro Lupo, at 4 a.m. on March 31, 2026, a massive influx of heavy vehicles and all manner of armed forces surrounded the L.U.P.O. building to begin the eviction and simultaneous demolition. Those present at the time of the raid were identified and immediately released. The neighborhood was militarized, and all access routes to the square were blocked by heavy vehicles and mobile barriers, preventing direct transit.
About fifty supporters remained on the corner of Via Teatro Massimo and Piazza Cutelli, the closest and most adjacent point accessible.
An idea cannot be demolished.
Against prisons, CPRs, and construction sites, until the end!
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