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Independent Media Center
Ad hoc Genoa Solidarity Committee
www.indymedia.org
RESPONSE TO POLICE RAID ON GENOA
SOCIAL FORUM AND IMC ITALIA OFFICES
23 JUNE 2001
CONTACT:
Han Soete, IMC-belgium member
han@skynet.be
+ 32 476 533 188
Doug Morris, IMC-chicago member
eredgreen@yahoo.com
(847) 657-0182
Sheri Herndon, IMC-seattle member
sheri@speakeasy.org
206.261.0184
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Independent Media Center Network (IMC) (http://www.indymedia.org) demands
that independent journalism and journalists be protected from state repression.
We also demand this incident of grave repression be given the full investigation
and scrutiny that it deserves. Reports indicate that black clad provocateurs
were working in conjunction with Italian Military Police in a vicious attack
on peaceful organizers.
MIDNIGHT RAID IN GENOA
On early Sunday morning, Italian Police stormed the IMC press office armed
with tear gas and batons. Italian military police and unknown provocateurs
simultaneously raided the school building across the street that has hosted
various groups participating in the Genoa Social Forum (GSF) (http://www.genoa-g8.org/).
Persons in the IMC at the time of the raid were forced to stand against
the wall with their hands up while police searched equipment and personal
effects. Reports vary on the number of injuries sustained by IMC staff.
IMC-Italia reports that one IMC reporter from the UK is hospitalized with
serious injuries from the attacks. Materials reportedly seized during the
raid include audio mini disks, video tapes and computer hard drives. Other
reports allege that telecommunications equipment was damaged and/or destroyed
during the raid. In the same building, the police also raided the Radio
Gap radio station and forced it off the air for a short time.
The neighboring school building hosting GSF organizers was where the worst
violence occurred. Eyewitnesses claim that around 50 black clad provocateurs
first entered the street in front of the school overturning dumpsters
and creating chaos. They then removed their black sweatshirts and entered
the school and began beating those inside indiscriminately; "most of the
most savage beatings were again not done by uniformed police but by characters
dressed in jeans and bandanas and helmets with 'police' written on their
T-shirts...." Hundreds of Italian police sealed off the street and a helicopter
flew low overhead as if on a military operation. Press in attendance was
kept back at a distance.
Many individuals were awoken from their sleep and lined up along walls,
hands over heads. The ensuing brutal assault lasted over 45 minutes...
Horrible screams from the building could be heard on the streets below.
Afterwards, the floors and walls were covered in blood. Twenty
wounded were carried out, many on stretchers, and three were unconscious
(according to BBC reporter Bill Hayton who was present during the raid).
The injured were taken to ambulances that arrived with the police; reports
today indicate over 50 injured. Police claimed to have authority to enter
and search the building for weapons under Article 41 (an anti-terrorist
act). Later an Italian MP, Luisa Morgantini, arrived and told the police
they had no such authority since the schools resided on state-owned property,
it was at this point the Police and provocateurs left the building.
The Genoa Social Forum held a press conference Sunday morning concerning
the details of the raid. (see http://italy.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=6282).
Volunteer lawyers for activists report that computers were destroyed and
that police stole information during the raid that related to their organizational
work, including the transcripts of testimonies. Materials were also
confiscated from the IMC offices that might have provided legal documentation
of police abuses in the preceding days. One lawyer stated, "The police blitz
is contrary to a state based upon rights and brings in a climate of terror."
Throughout the day Sunday , the IMC newswire contained reports of continued
police beatings of activists in Genoa, both in the streets and in the jails...
Reports indicate that many injured demonstrators are fearful to seek treatment
in hospitals since the police have been removing people with unexplained
wounds and taking them to jail. At present over 500 hundred people are missing
and unaccounted for.
A full investigation is called for, concerning the use of violent provocateurs
by police. Reports all weekend in Genoa have asserted that much of the property
destruction and violent provocations were carried out by individuals
apparently working in conjunction with police and dressed like black clad
anarchists. Similar reports have surfaced in past demonstrations in
Prague, Quebec and elsewhere. This disturbing claim and the subsequent
violence and closing of the GSF and IMC demand full attention.
--------------------------------------------- ADDITIONAL INFORMATION -----------------------------------------------
IMC BACKGROUND: A FREE PRESS NETWORK
The IMCs, or Indymedia, are a network of independent media organizations
and hundreds of individual journalists offering grassroots, non-corporate
coverage.
Indymedia is a democratic media outlet with the mission to create radical,
accurate, and passionate tellings of truth. The first IMC was initiated
in Seattle, in the fall of 1999, during the demonstrations against the World
Trade Organization. The center was created to ensure that diverse voices
could be heard with a clarity and focus beyond the usual chatter of the
commercial media soundbite.
The Indymedia website is an unusual phenomenon in cyberspace: visited by
literally millions, the network has led to the creation of over fifty collaborative
sites in cities all over the world.
For people in dozens of countries, indymedia.org is news: news that they
can rely on, news that does not have the bias of information/entertainment
corporations who have a stake in maintaining the status quo. The open
publishing software of the web site enables anyone with a basic computer
and modem to post immediately on the news wire, without an intervening editor.
Indymedia has created a model for collaborative work that makes a real difference.
The IMC organizes collaborations between various types of media (print,
photo, video, radio and internet) and between diverse organizations and
individuals. The IMCs are non-hierarchical in nature. The decisionmaking
is by consensus and all participants, including those who can freely post
on the newswire from home, are themselves empowered.
The growing global justice movement, which is against corporate control
of globalization and for a more democratic and inclusive process of setting
the world's priorities and allocation of resources, has depended on, and
benefitted from, the IMCs to provide breaking and unfiltered coverage of
diverse views, conferences, and demonstrations.
HISTORY OF STATE SUPPRESSION OF IMC AND THE FUTURE
The recent raid on the Indymedia Center in Genoa is the latest in a series
of intimidations and threats to this movement of independent media centers.
As the Indymedia movement has grown, it has been subject to increasing repression.
From the first days in Seattle, when the IMC received a tear gas attack,
there have been indications that authorities identified the IMC movement
as a target to intimidate and silence.
At the IMC in LA during the August 2000 Democratic National Convention,
a police raid closed down the satellite van that was scheduled to uplink
live IMC television to a national grassroots community television network.
In Prague, the Czech police raided the IMC offices, harassing and
intimidating journalists and others. During the days preceding the
Bush inauguration, DC police sent spy/provocateur agents to IMC-DC meetings.
More recently, during the FTAA protests, the FBI visited the Seattle IMC
with a request for all computer logs and a gag-order injunction demanding
that no news of the request be made public on the net. The IMC in
Quebec also suffered police harassment and an attack in which tear gas was
fired into the center. Less than a month later, shortly after the Cincinnati
uprising over police brutality last spring, police served an order on a
coordinator at the Ohio Valley IMC, also requesting records and tape logs
and to appear before a Grand Jury.
The IMC gained a victory for the independent press community when these
injunctions were withdrawn by the FBI after The Electronic Frontier Foundation,
the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the Electronic Privacy Information
Center intervened to support the IMCs.
The IMC global network will continue to fight hard to protect the rights
of independent journalists around the world and to ensure that the voices
of our many diverse communities are accurately and respectfully covered
and made available to the rest of the world. As stated in Article
19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "Everyone has the right
to the freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to
hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information
and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."
CONTINUING IMC COVERAGE
For ongoing coverage of the Genoa protests, stay tuned to IMC-Italia
http://italia.indymedia.org, and global IMC, http://www.indymedia..org.
Eyewitness accounts of the IMC and GSF raids.
http://sf.indymedia.org/display.php?id=102064
http://la.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=8871
An IMC NEWS BLAST will be released Tuesday for summary, news and
updates on the protests in Genoa. Here's the link to the first one:
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/imc-news/2001-July/000228.html.
Also see:
Indymedia radio broadcasts: http://radio.indymedia.org/
Indymedia print summaries (in distributable newsletter/flier format): http://print.indymedia.org
IMC sites are providing detailed coverage include (see global website Left
column for links): France, UK, Belgium, Barcelona, Switzerland, Germany,
Austria, IMC-Sweden, Brasil, Argentina, Chicago, and New York City.
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