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From: Sheri Herndon <sheri@indymedia.org><br>
To: <imc-global@indymedia.org>,<br>
IMC Communication
<imc-communication@indymedia.org><br>
Subject: [IMC-Global] IMC PRESS RELEASE: RESPONSE TO POLICE RAID ON
GENOA SOCIAL FORUM<br>
AND IMC ITALIA OFFICES<br>
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Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 18:52:13 -0700<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<h5><b>------------ please distribute widely
--------------</b></h5><br>
<font size=5><br>
Independent Media Center <br>
</font>Ad hoc Genoa Solidarity Committee<br>
<a href="http://www.indymedia.org/" eudora="autourl">www.indymedia.org</a><br>
<font size=5><br>
RESPONSE TO POLICE RAID ON GENOA<br>
SOCIAL FORUM AND IMC ITALIA OFFICES<br>
</font><br>
23 JUNE 2001<br>
<br>
<b>CONTACT: <br>
</b><tt>Han Soete, IMC-belgium member<br>
<font face="Courier New, Courier" color="#0000FF">han@skynet.be<br>
</u></font>+ 32 476 533 188<br>
<br>
Doug Morris, IMC-chicago member<br>
<font face="Courier New, Courier" color="#0000FF">eredgreen@yahoo.com<br>
</u></font>(847) 657-0182<br>
<br>
Sheri Herndon, IMC-seattle member<br>
<font face="Courier New, Courier" color="#0000FF">sheri@speakeasy.org<br>
</u></font>206.261.0184<br>
</tt><br>
<b>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE<font size=5> </b></font><br>
<br>
The Independent Media Center Network (IMC)
(<a href="http://www.indymedia.org/" eudora="autourl">http://www.indymedia.org</a>)
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.
<br>
<br>
<b>MIDNIGHT RAID IN GENOA<br>
</b><br>
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)
(<a href="http://www.genoa-g8.org/" eudora="autourl">http://www.genoa-g8.org/</a>).<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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."<br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
--------------------------------------------- ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
-----------------------------------------------<br>
<br>
<b>IMC BACKGROUND: A FREE PRESS NETWORK<br>
</b><br>
The IMCs, or Indymedia, are a network of independent media organizations
and hundreds of individual journalists offering grassroots, non-corporate
coverage.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
<br>
<b>HISTORY OF STATE SUPPRESSION OF IMC AND THE FUTURE<br>
</b><br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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
<b>Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights</b>:
"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." <br>
<br>
<b>CONTINUING IMC COVERAGE<br>
</b><br>
For ongoing coverage of the Genoa protests, stay tuned to
IMC-Italia<br>
<a href="http://italia.indymedia.org/" eudora="autourl">http://italia.indymedia.org</a>,
and global IMC,
<a href="http://www.indymedia..org/" eudora="autourl">http://www.indymedia..org</a>.<br>
<br>
Eyewitness accounts of the IMC and GSF raids.<br>
<a href="http://sf.indymedia.org/display.php?id=102064" eudora="autourl">http://sf.indymedia.org/display.php?id=102064</a><br>
<font color="#0000FF"><u><a href="http://la.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=8871" eudora="autourl">http://la.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=8871</a><br>
</u></font><br>
An <b>IMC NEWS BLAST</b> will be released Tuesday for summary, news and
updates on the protests in Genoa. Here's the link to the first
one:
<a href="http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/imc-news/2001-July/000228.html" eudora="autourl">http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/imc-news/2001-July/000228.html</a>.<br>
<br>
Also see:<br>
Indymedia radio broadcasts:
<a href="http://radio.indymedia.org/" eudora="autourl">http://radio.indymedia.org/</a><br>
Indymedia print summaries (in distributable newsletter/flier format):
<a href="http://print.indymedia.org/" eudora="autourl">http://print.indymedia.org</a><br>
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. <br>
</blockquote></html>