FC: Italian police raid Genoa online journalist collective

[Declan McCullagh]

It's unclear what happened, but preliminary reports out of Genoa say that 
police armed with guns and search warrants raided "the headquarters of the 
umbrella group behind anti-capitalist riots against the Group of Eight 
summit" on Saturday evening.

That apparently included the Independent Media Center, which was either was 
a target of the raid or swept up in it (the focus seems to have been on the 
"Genoa Social Forum," and they may have shared the same building). Often 
IMC reporters are activists who take part in street actions, though IMC 
organizers try to discourage this by advising reporters to hide their press 
pass when that happens.

One sketchy AFP report, which alludes to a "brutal" raid:
http://asia.dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/world/afp/article.html?s=asia/headlines/010722/world/afp/Police_in_brutal_raid_on_G8_protesters__press_centre.html
And what appears to be a reproduced Reuters article:
http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=54267&group=webcast

IMC reports saying police entered the newsroom:
http://italia.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=5415&group=webcast
http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=54208&group=webcast
http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=54266&group=webcast
http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=54245&group=webcast
http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=54221&group=webcast

CNN.com article from four days ago saying car bomb and letter bomb early 
this week put cops on high alert:
http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/07/17/genoa.amnesty/index.html

Politech archive on Seattle IMC tussle with FBI over web logs:
http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=imc

-Declan

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