FW: [IMC-News] IMC PRESS RELEASE: RESPONSE TO POLICE RAID ON GENOA SOCIAL FORUM AND IMC ITALIA OFFICES

[Aimee Farr]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: imc-news-admin at lists.indymedia.org
> [mailto:imc-news-admin at lists.indymedia.org]
> Sent: Monday, July 23, 2001 9:07 PM
> To: imc-news at indymedia.org
> Subject: [IMC-News] IMC PRESS RELEASE: RESPONSE TO POLICE RAID ON GENOA
> SOCIAL FORUM AND IMC ITALIA OFFICES
>
>
>
> ------------ please distribute widely --------------
>
> 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 at skynet.be
> + 32 476 533 188
>
> Doug Morris, IMC-chicago member
> eredgreen at yahoo.com
> (847) 657-0182
>
> Sheri Herndon, IMC-seattle member
> sheri at 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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