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

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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.