[Imc] Fwd: [IMC-Global] IMC PRESS RELEASE: RESPONSE TO POLICE RAID ON GENOA SOCIAL FORUM AND IMC ITALIA OFFICES
Paul Riismandel
p-riism at uiuc.edu
Tue Jul 24 17:41:36 UTC 2001
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>From: Sheri Herndon <sheri at indymedia.org>
>To: <imc-global at indymedia.org>,
> IMC Communication <imc-communication at indymedia.org>
>Subject: [IMC-Global] IMC PRESS RELEASE: RESPONSE TO POLICE RAID ON GENOA
>SOCIAL FORUM
> AND IMC ITALIA OFFICES
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>Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 18:52:13 -0700
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>------------ 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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