Based in Ljubljana, Embassy Rog is a migrant-led community centre and political hub that operates as one of the most vital, and most embattled, spaces for refugee solidarity in Slovenia. Emerging from the evicted Autonomous Factory Rog squat, the Embassy has relocated to a rented space, making it the only migrant community centre of its kind in the country, and a crucial base for connecting a dispersed and transient population of asylum seekers, refugees, and undocumented migrants. The organisation works in a context of relentless state repression: Slovenia’s border regime is among Europe’s most brutal, characterised by illegal pushbacks, militarised fences, and the notorious Postojna detention centre, where conditions have sparked hunger strikes and institutional outrage. Against this backdrop, Embassy Rog coordinates a multifaceted strategy that includes daily community support (free meals, legal aid, social solidarity), sustained monitoring of detention centere, local anti-border activism along the river frontier, and the production of “Tukaj smo”—a refugee newspaper that amplifies migrant voices in four languages. The group’s work is defined by political precarity: police persecution, heavy fines for public gatherings, racist neighbour backlash, and right-wing political attacks are constant pressures, yet the Embassy has transformed this hostility into a source of strength, building alliances with anti-gentrification movements, trade unions, and feminist collectives. Their ultimate aim is not charity but the building of migrant political agency, challenging a system designed to render people on the move invisible and powerless.
The Guerrilla Grant
Funds we are distributing to Rog will provide a critical lifeline to their expanded vision, with the bulk of the funding, directed toward campaign activities and migrant organising, while a small amount covers the gap in core expenses for the newly rented community space. Concretely, the grant will enable the Embassy to move beyond reactive, sporadic actions into sustained, strategic interventions: regular weekly visits to the Postojna detention centre to maintain contact with detainees, track illegal pushbacks, and provide legal representation; the printing of new issues of “Tukaj smo” to ensure the paper circulates beyond social media, generating media coverage and community engagement; and the resumption of larger cross-border actions with local activists, including a planned theatre event on the river with Balkan River Defence and local tourist workers. Crucially, the funding supports the Embassy’s core belief that fighting detention is inseparable from fighting border militarisation, and that both require the patient, daily work of presence, relationship-building, and trust that only a stable physical space can provide. By underwriting this work, the grant ensures that the Embassy can maintain its turnover of 15 to 50 daily visitors, sustain its role as a convening point for anti-racist and anti-gentrification struggles, and continue to turn the isolation of detention into collective resistance, transforming the pain of pushbacks into a political force that, as elections approach, can pressure Slovenia’s immigration policies from the ground up.
